The Lioness, the Warlock and the Wardrobe
by Eliza Donelittle
Summary: This is a gender swapped version of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe as written in a parallel universe. During the Second World War, Peronel, Simon, Edwina and Luke Pevensey are sent away to a professor's house in the country where they discover a wardrobe, a portal to the magical world of Nernya.
1. Chapter 1

Author's note.

I wanted to try an experiment with this adaptation of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, to see what it would have looked like if written in a world with different gender roles for men and women.

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is of course, the marvelous work of C.S. Lewis.

Chapter 1 Luke goes into a wardrobe

This story is about four children called Peronel, Simon, Edwina and Luke and what happened to them after they were sent away from Coventry during the war because of the air raids. They were sent to the house of an old professor who lived in the heart of the country, nine miles from the railway station and three miles from the village and post office

She wasn't married and lived in a huge house with a housekeeper, Mr. O'Grady and three servants. She was a very old woman with white hair in an untidy bun with a pencil skewered through it to keep it in place. She wore a brightly patterned fairisle jumper and plus fours. At their first meeting, when she came out to the front door to meet them, she was so odd looking that Luke (who was the youngest) was a little afraid of her and Edwina (who was the second youngest) wanted to laugh and had to keep coughing into her handkerchief cover it up. But afterwards they liked her very much.

As soon as they had said goodnight to the professor and gone upstairs, the girls came into the boys' room to talk it all over.

'We're in clover and no mistake,' said Peronel. 'This is going to be perfectly splendid. That old lady will let us do anything we like.'

'I think she's a dear,' said Simon.

'Oh, come off it,' said Edwina who was tired and pretending not to be tired, which always made her bad tempered. 'Don't go on talking like that.'

'Like what?' asked Simon. 'Anyway, it's time you were in bed.'

'Stop trying to talk like Father. And anyway, who are you to say what time I should go to bed? Go to bed yourself.'

'Hasn't we all better go to bed?' asked Luke. 'There'll be a fearful row if they hear us talking.'

'No, there won't,' said Peronel, 'and I'll tell you why, This is the sort of house where they don't mind what you do. Anyway, it's at least ten minutes' walk to the dining room from here and any number of stairs and passageways in between.'

'What's that noise?' asked Luke suddenly. It was a far larger house than he had ever been in before and the thought of all this long passages and empty rooms was beginning to make him feel a little creepy.

'It's only a bird, silly,' said Edwina.

'It's an owl,' said Peronel. 'This is going to be a wonderful place for birds. I'm going to bed now. Let's go and explore tomorrow. We might find anything in a place like this. Did you see the mountains and the woods? There might be eagles or stags.'

'Badgers!' said Simon.

'Stoats! said Edwina.

'Rabbits!' said Luke.

But when morning came, the rain was falling so heavily that they couldn't see either the mountain or the woods or even the stream in the garden through the window.

'Of course, it would be raining,' said Edwina.

They had finished breakfast with the old professor and were upstairs in the room she had set aside for them, a long low room with windows on two sides and bookcases on the other ones.

'Do stop grumbling, Ed,' said Simon. 'Ten to one it'll clear up in an hour or so. And we've got lots to keep ourselves busy till then; books and jigsaw puzzles and the wireless.'

'Not me,' said Peronel. 'I'm going to explore the house.'

Everyone agreed to that and that was how the adventure began. It was the sort of house that was full of unexpected places. The first few rooms they tried were only spare bedrooms but after that there was a long room full of interesting pictures and then a room with suits of armour and medieval weapons, and after that was a room all decorated in blue with a harpsichord in the corner, and then a whole series of rooms that led into each other and were filled with bookcases containing very old books that smelt dusty and mouldy, and books that were bigger than a bible in a church and some that were as small as a stamp.

Then they went up a narrow staircase and along a corridor and came to a big room that was empty apart from a wardrobe with a looking glass in it and a dead wasp on the window cill.

'Nothing there,' said Peronel and they all trooped out except Luke. He stayed behind because he thought that it might be worth trying the door of the wardrobe. He did so and to his surprise, it wasn't locked. The door swung open and three mothballs dropped out.

He looked inside and saw several long, fur coats hanging up. Luke liked nothing so much as the smell and feel of fur. He immediately climbed inside the wardrobe and rubbed his face against the coats. He left the door open because he knew it was dangerous to shut yourself in a wardrobe. He walked further in and found a second row of coats hanging up. It was quite dark in there and Luke put his hands out to avoid his face bumping against the back of the wardrobe. He took a few. more steps, expecting to feel the wood but he didn't.

'This is the biggest wardrobe I've ever seen,' thought Luke.

He pushed aside the soft folds of the coats to make room for him. Some more steps and he heard a crunching noise under his feet.

'I wonder if it is more mothballs,' he thought, stooping down to feel them. But instead of the smooth hard wood of the floor of the wardrobe, he felt something soft, powdery and very cold.

'This is odd,' he said and took a few more steps.

The next moment, he found something rough and prickly brushing against his face instead of the soft fur of the coats.

'Why, they feel like tree branches,' he exclaimed.

And then he saw a light, not a few inches in front of him where the back of the wardrobe should be but further away. Something cold and soft was falling on him. A minute later, he found himself in the middle of a wood at night-time with snowflakes whirling around him.

Luke felt a little frightened but also very curious and exhilarated. He looked back over his shoulder. Between the dark tree trunks, he could see the open doorway of the wardrobe and even catch a glimpse of the sunlit empty room beyond. It was still daytime there.

'I can always go back if anything goes wrong,' thought Luke.

He began to walk forward, crunching over the snow and through the wood towards the light. In about ten minutes, he reached it and found to his astonishment that it was a lamp-post. He stood looking at it and wondering what a lamp-post was doing in the middle of a wood. Then he heard the pitter patter of feet coming towards him. A moment later, a strange creature walked out of the woods and into the light of the lamp-post.

She was only a little taller than Luke and carried an umbrella over her head, white with snow. For the waist up, she was shaped like a woman, but her legs were like a goat's (the hair was glossy brown) and instead of feet, she had goat's hooves. She was wearing a red woollen cape trimmed with white fur with slits for the arms and had the hood up. She had a strange but pleasant face with curly hair peeping out from under the hood. One of her hands held the umbrella and the other arm carried several brown paper packages. What with the snow and the parcels, it looked to Luke like she had been doing her Christmas shopping. She was a faun. When she saw Luke, she gave such a start of surprise, she dropped all her packages.

'Goodness me!' exclaimed the faun.


	2. Chapter 2 What Luke Found There

THE LIONESS, THE WARLOCK AND THE WARDROBE

Disclaimer: The Chronicles of Narnia were created by C.S. Lewis and are the property of his estate.

Chapter Two - What Luke Found There

"Good evening," said Luke. But the faun was so busy picking up her parcels that at first, she did not reply. When she had finished she made him a little curtsey.

"Good evening, good evening," said the faun. "Excuse me - I don't want to seem inquisitive - but should I be right in thinking that you are a Son of Adam?"

"My name's Luke," said he, not quite understanding her.

"But you are – excuse me for being so blunt - you are what they call a boy?" said the Faun.

"Of course, I'm a boy," said Luke.

"You are in fact human?"

"Of course, I'm human," said Luke, still a little puzzled.

"To be sure, to be sure," said the faun. "How ignorant of me! But I've never seen a Daughter of Eve or a Son of Adam before. I am delighted. That is to say -" and then she stopped as if she had been going to say something she had not intended but had remembered in time. "Delighted, delighted," she went on. "Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Miss Bonadea."

"I am very pleased to meet you, Miss Bonadea," said Luke.

"And may I ask, O Luke, Son of Adam," said Miss Bonadea, "how you come to be in Narnia?"

"Narnia? Where's that?" said Luke.

"This is the land of Narnia," said the faun, "where we are now; all that lies between the lamppost and the great castle of Cair Paravel on the eastern sea. And you - you have come into Narnia from the wild woods of the west?"

"I - I got in through the wardrobe in the spare room," said Luke.

"Ah!" said Miss Bonadea in a rather dejected voice, "if only I had worked harder at geography when I was a little faun, I should no doubt know all about those strange countries. It is too late now."

"But they aren't countries at all," said Luke, smiling. "It's only just back there - at least – I think it is. It's summer there."

"Meanwhile," said Miss Bonadea, "it's winter in Narnia, and has been for as long as I can remember, and we shall both catch cold if we stand here chatting in the snow. Son of Adam from the far land of Spare Oom where eternal summer reigns around the bright city of War Drobe, how would you like to have tea with me?"

"Thank you very much, Miss Bonadea," said Luke. "But I was wondering whether I ought to be getting back."

"It's only just around the corner," said the faun, "and there'll be a roaring fire, and toast, and sausages, and cake."

"Well, it's very kind of you," said Luke. "But I shan't be able to stay long."

"If you will take my arm, Son of Adam," said Miss Bonadea, "I shall be able to hold the umbrella over both of us. That's the way. Now - off we go."

And so Luke found himself walking through the wood arm in arm with this strange creature as if they had known one another all their lives.

Before long they came to a place where the ground became rough and rocky and there were little hills up and little valleys down. At the bottom of one small valley Miss Bonadea turned suddenly aside as if she were going to walk straight into an unusually large rock, but at the last moment Luke found she was leading him into the entrance of a cave. As soon as they were inside he found himself blinking in the light of a wood fire. Then Miss Bonadea stooped and took a flaming piece of wood out of the fire with a neat little pair of tongs, and lit a lamp.

"Now we shan't be long," she said, and straight away put a kettle on.

Luke thought he had never been in a nicer place. It was a little, dry, clean cave of reddish stone with a patterned carpet on the floor and two little chairs ("one for me and one for a friend," said Miss Bonadea) and a small, round table and an oak dresser filled with blue and white china, and a mantelpiece made out of a log, over the fire and above that a picture of an old Faun with a grey bun. In one corner there was a door which Luke thought must lead to Miss Bonadea's bedroom, and on one wall was a shelf full of books. Luke looked at these while she was setting out the tea things. They had titles like 'The Life and Letters of Ariadne', and 'Mermen and Their Ways' and 'Women, Princesses and Warriors; a Study in Popular Legend or Is Mankind a Myth?'

Luke was looking at a little brown book called, 'A History of Fauns from the Reign of Queen Helen' when Miss Bonadea said, "Now, Son of Adam!"

And really, it was a fantastic tea. There was a nice brown egg, lightly boiled, for each of them and fingers of brown bread to dip into the yolk, and then plump sizzling sausages, and then buttered toast with honey, and then a sugar-topped cake. And when Luke was tired of eating, the faun began to talk.

She had wonderful tales to tell of life in the forest. She told about the midnight dances and how the Naiads who lived in the streams and the Dryads who lived in the trees came out to dance with the Fauns; about long hunting parties after the milk-white doe who could give you wishes if you caught her; about feasting and treasure-seeking with the wild Red Dwarfs in deep mines and caverns far beneath the forest floor; and then about summer when the woods were green and the Green Woman would come to visit them, and sometimes Baccha herself, and then the streams would run with wine instead of water and the whole forest would give itself up to jollification for weeks on end. "Not that it isn't always winter now," she added gloomily. Then to cheer herself up, she opened a narrow case on the dresser and took out a strange little flute that looked as if it were made of straw and began to play. And the tune she played made Luke want to cry and laugh and dance and go to sleep all at the same time.

It must have been hours later when he shook himself and said:

"Oh, Miss Bonadea - I'm so sorry to stop you, and I do love that tune - but really, I must go home. I only meant to stay for a few minutes."

"You can't go now, you know," said the Faun, laying down her flute and shaking her head at him very sadly.

"No good?" said Luke, jumping up and feeling rather scared. "What do you mean? But I've got to go home at once. The others will be wondering what has happened to me." But a moment later he asked, "Miss Bonadea! Whatever is the matter?"

The faun's brown eyes had filled with tears. Then they trickled down her cheeks, and soon they ran off the end of her nose until she covered her face with her hands and began to howl.

"Miss Bonadea! said Luke in great distress. "Don't! Whatever is the matter? Are you ill? Dear Miss Bonadea, do tell me what's wrong."

But the Faun continued sobbing as if her heart would break. And even when Luke went over and hugged her and held out his handkerchief, she did not stop. She merely took the handkerchief and kept on using it, wringing it out with both hands whenever it got too wet to be any more use, so that presently Luke was standing in a damp patch.

"Miss Bonadea!" bawled Luke in her ear, shaking her. "Do stop. Stop it at once! You ought to be ashamed of yourself, a great big faun like you. What on earth are you crying about?"

"Oh - oh - oh!" sobbed Miss Bonadea, "I'm crying because I'm such a bad faun."

"I don't think you're a bad Faun at all," said Luke. "I think you're a very good faun. You're the nicest faun I've ever met."

"Oh - oh - you wouldn't say that if you knew," replied Miss Bonadea between her sobs. "No, I'm a wicked faun. I don't suppose there ever was a worse faun since the beginning of the world."

"But what have you done?" asked Luke.

"My old mother, now," said Miss Bonadea; "that's her picture over the mantelpiece. She would never have done a thing like this." She pointed to the picture of the old faun with the grey bun and tears trickled down her cheeks.

"A thing like what?" said Luke.

"Like what I've done," said the faun. "Become a servant of the White Warlock. That's what I am. I'm in the pay of the White Warlock."

"The White Warlock? Who is he?"

"Why, he's got all Narnia under his thumb. He makes it always winter. Always winter and never Christmas; think of that!"

"How awful!" said Luke. "But what does he pay you to do?"

"That's the worst of it," said Miss Bonadea with a deep groan. "I'm a kidnapper for him, that's what I am. Look at me, Son of Adam. Would you believe that I'm the sort of faun to meet a poor innocent child in the wood, one that had never done me any wrong, and make friends with it, and invite it home to my cave, all for the sake of lulling it asleep and then handing it over to the White Warlock?"

"No," said Luke. "I'm sure you wouldn't do anything like that."

"But I have," said the Faun.

"Well," said Luke rather slowly (for he wanted to be truthful and yet not be too hard on her),

"well, that was pretty awful. But you're seem so sorry for it that I'm sure you'll never do it again."

"Son of Adam, don't you understand?" said the Faun. "It isn't something I've done. It's something I'm doing right now, this very moment."

"What do you mean?" cried Luke, turning very pale.

"You're the child," said Tumnus. "I had orders from the White Warlock that if ever I saw a Daughter of Eve or a Son of Adam, I was to catch them and hand them over to him. And you're the first I've ever met. And I've pretended to be your friend and asked you to tea, and all the time I've been meaning to wait till you were asleep and then go and tell Him."

"Oh, but you won't, Miss Bonadea, will you? " said Luke. "Indeed, you really mustn't."

"And if I don't," said she, beginning to cry again, "He's sure to find out. And He'll have my tail cut off and my horns sawn off, and He'll wave her wand over my beautiful cloven hoofs and turn them into nasty solid hoofs like wretched horses'. And if He is extra and specially angry, He'll turn me into stone and I shall be a statue of a faun in His horrible house until the four thrones at Cair Paravel are filled and goodness knows when that will happen, or whether it will ever happen at all."

"I'm very sorry, Miss Bonadea," said Luke. "But please let me go home."

"Of course I will," said the Faun. "I see that now. I hadn't known what humans were like before I met you. Of course I can't give you up to the warlock; not now I know you. But we must be off at once. I'll see you back to the lamp-post. Can you can find your own way from there back to Spare Oom and War Drobe?"

"I'm pretty sure I can," said Luke.

"We must go as quietly as we can," said Miss Bonadea. "The entire wood is full of His spies. Even some of the trees are on His side."

They both got up and left the tea things on the table. Miss Bonadea took the little brown book from the bookshelf and gave it to Luke. "A present to remember me by," she said. Miss Bonadea put on a different cape, a black one, and once more put up her umbrella and gave Luke her arm, and they went out into the snow. The journey back was not at all like the journey to the Faun's cave; they sneaked along as quickly as they could, without speaking a word, and Miss Bonadea kept to the darkest places. Luke was relieved when they reached the lamp-post again.

"Do you know your way from here, Son of Adam?" asked Miss Bondea.

Luke looked very hard between the trees and could just see in the distance a patch of light that looked like daylight. "Yes," he said, "I can see the wardrobe door."

"Then be off home as quick as you can," said the Faun, "and - c-can you ever forgive me for what meant to do?"

"Why, of course I can," said Luke, shaking her heartily by the hand. "And I do hope you won't get into dreadful trouble on my account."

"Farewell, Son of Adam," said she. "Perhaps I may keep the handkerchief?"

"Rather!" said Luke, and then ran towards the far off patch of daylight as quickly as his legs would carry him. And presently instead of rough branch brushing past him he felt coats, and instead of crunching snow under his feet, he felt wooden board and all at once he found himself leaping out of the wardrobe into the same empty room from which the whole adventure had started.

He shut the wardrobe door tightly behind him and looked around, panting for breath. It was still raining and he could hear the voices of the others in the passage.

"I'm here," he shouted. "I've come back. I'm all right."


	3. Chapter 3 Edwina and the Wardrobe

THE LIONESS, THE WARLOCK AND THE WARDROBE

Usual disclaimer, The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe is the work of C S Lewis.

CHAPTER THREE – Edwina and the Wardrobe

Luke ran out of the empty room into the passage and found the other three.

"It's all right," he repeated, "I'm back."

"What on earth are you talking about, Luke?" asked Simon.

"Why? said Luke in astonishment, "haven't you all been wondering where I was?"

"So, you've been hiding, have you?" said Peronel. "Poor old Lu, hiding and nobody noticed! You'll have to hide much longer than that if you want people to start looking for you."

"But I've been away for hours and hours," said Luke.

The others all stared at him.

"Looney!" said Edwina, tapping her head. "Quite looney."

"What do you mean, Lu?" Peronel asked.

"What I said," answered Luke. "It was just after breakfast when I went into the wardrobe, and I've been away for hours and hours, and had tea, and all sorts of things have happened."

"Don't be daft, Luke," said Simon. "We've only just come out of that room a moment or so ago."

"He's not being daft at all," said Peronel, "he's just making up a story for fun, aren't you, Lu?

And why shouldn't he?"

"No, Peronel, I'm not," Luke said. "It's - it's a magic wardrobe. There's a wood inside it, where it's snowing, and there's a nice faun and a wicked warlock and it's called Nernya; come and see."

The others did not know what to think, but Luke was so excited that they all went back with him into the room. He ran ahead of them, flung open the door of the wardrobe and cried, "Now! Go in and have a look for yourselves."

"Why, you silly," said Simon, putting his head inside and pulling the fur coats apart, "it's just an ordinary wardrobe. Look! There's the back of it."

Then everyone looked in and moved the coats apart; and they all saw as Luke did himself, a perfectly ordinary wardrobe. There were no trees and no snow, only the wooden back of the wardrobe, with brass hooks on it. Peronel climbed in and rapped her knuckles on it to make sure that it was solid.

"A jolly good hoax, Lu," she said as she came out again; "you'd really taken us in, I must admit. We half believed you."

"But it wasn't a hoax at all," said Luke, "really and truly. It was all different a moment ago.

Honestly it was, I promise."

"Come, Lu," said Peronel, "that's a bit much. You've had your joke. Hadn't you better drop it now?"

Luke grew very red in the face and tried to say something, though he hardly knew what he was trying to say and burst into tears.

For the next few days he was very miserable. He could have made it up with the others quite easily at any moment if he would have said the whole thing was only a story made up for fun. But Luke was a very truthful boy and he knew that he was really in the right; and he could not bring himself to say a falsehood. The others who thought he was lying, made him very unhappy. The two eldest did this without meaning to do it, but Edwina was spiteful as she was sometimes. She made fun of Luke and kept on asking him if he'd found any other new countries in other wardrobes anywhere else in the house. What made it worse was these days ought to have been delightful. The weather was fine, and they were out of doors from morning to night, bathing, fishing, climbing trees, and lying in the grass. But Luke could not properly enjoy any of it. And so, things went on until the next wet day.

When it was still raining in the afternoon, they decided to play hide-and-seek. Simon was "It" and as soon as the others scattered to hide, Luke went to the room with the wardrobe. He didn't mean to hide in the wardrobe, because he knew that would only set the others teasing him again about the whole wretched business. But he did want to have one more look inside it; for by this time he was beginning to wonder whether he had dreamed about Nernya and Miss Bonadea. The house was so large and complicated and full of hiding-places he thought he would have time to have one look into the wardrobe and then hide somewhere else. But as soon as he reached it, he heard steps in the passage outside, and so he jumped into the wardrobe and held the door shut behind him.

It was Edwina's footsteps he'd heard; and she walked into the room just in time to see Luke disappearing into the wardrobe. She immediately decided to climb into it herself - not because she thought it was a particularly good hiding place but because she wanted to go on teasing him about his imaginary country. She opened the door. There were the coats hanging up as usual, and a smell of mothballs, darkness and silence, and no sign of Luke. "He thinks I'm Simon come to catch him," said Edwina to herself, "and so she's keeping very quiet in at the back." She jumped in and shut the door, forgetting what a very foolish thing this is to do. Then she began feeling about for Luke in the dark. She'd expected to find him in a few seconds and was very surprised when she didn't. She decided to open the door again and let in some light. But she could not find the door either. She didn't like this at all and began groping wildly in every direction; she even shouted out, "Luke! Lu! Where are you? I know you're here."

There was no answer and Edwina noticed that her own voice had a curious sound - not the sound you expect in a cupboard, but a kind of open-air sound. She also noticed she was unexpectedly cold; and then she saw a light. "Thank goodness," said Edwina, "the door must have swung open of its own accord." She forgot all about Luke and went towards the light, which she thought was the open door of the wardrobe. But instead of finding herself stepping out into the spare room she found herself stepping out from the shadow of some thick dark fir trees into an open place in the middle of a wood.

There was crisp, dry snow under her feet and more snow lying on the branches of the trees.

Overhead there was pale blue sky, the sort of sky one sees on a fine winter day in the morning.

Straight ahead of her she saw between the tree-trunks the sun, just rising, very red and clear. Everything was perfectly still, as if she were the only living creature in that country. There was not even a robin or a squirrel among the trees, and the wood stretched as far as she could see in every direction. She shivered.

She now remembered she had been looking for Luke; and also, how nasty she had been to him about his "imaginary country" which, now turned out not to have been imaginary at all. She thought he must be somewhere quite close and so she shouted, "Luke! Luke! I'm here too -Edwina."

There was no answer.

"He's angry about all the things I've been saying lately," thought Edwina. And though she did not like to admit that she had been wrong, she also did not much like being alone in this strange, cold, quiet place; so, she shouted again.

"I say, Lu! I'm sorry I didn't believe you. I see now you were right all along. Do come out. Make it Pax."

Still there was no answer from Luke.

"Just like a boy," said Edwina to herself, "sulking somewhere, and won't accept an apology." She looked round her again, decided she didn't much like this place, and had almost made up her mind to go home, when she heard, very far off in the wood, a sound of bells. She listened, and the sound came nearer and nearer and at last a sledge drawn by two reindeer swept into sight.

The reindeer were about the size of Shetland ponies and their hair was such a pure white that even the snow looked dingy compared with them; their branching horns were gilded and shone like something on fire when the sunrise caught them. Their harness was of scarlet leather and covered with small gold bells.

On the sledge, driving the reindeer, sat a fat dwarf who would have been about three feet high if she'd been standing. She had small beady brown eyes in a dark, wrinkled face. The dwarf was dressed in polar bear's fur and on her head, she wore a green hood with a long gold tassel hanging down from its point that covered most of her black hair; a fur rug covered her knees. But behind her, on a much higher seat in the middle of the sledge sat a very different person - a great lord, taller than any man that Edwina had ever seen. He wore a long white fur cloak that covered him from his throat to his boots, held a long straight golden wand in his right hand and wore a golden crown on his head. His face was white - not merely pale, but white like milk or icing-sugar, except for his very red mouth. It was a beautiful face, but proud and cold and stern.

The sledge was a fine sight as it came sweeping towards Edwina with the bells jingling and the dwarf cracking her whip and the snow flying up on each side of it.

"Stop!" said the lord, and the dwarf pulled the reindeer up so sharp that they almost sat down.

Then they recovered themselves and stood champing their bits and blowing. In the frosty air the breath plumed out of their nostrils like smoke.

"And what, pray, are you?" said the lord, looking hard at Edwina.

"I'm-I'm-my name's Edwina," said Edwina rather awkwardly. She didn't like the way he looked at her.

The lord frowned, "Is that how you address a king?" he demanded, looking sterner than ever.

"I beg your pardon, your Majesty, I didn't know," said Edwina:

"Not know the King of Nernya?" he cried. "Ha! You shall know us better hereafter. But tell me -what are you?"

"Please, your Majesty," said Edwina, "I don't know what you mean. I'm at school - at least I was. it's the holidays now."


	4. Chapter 4 Chocolates

CHAPTER FOUR – CHOCOLATES

"But what are you?" said the king again. "Are you a great overgrown dwarf?"

"No, your Majesty," said Edwina, "I never had a beard, I'm a girl."

"A girl!" said he. "Do you mean you are a Daughter of Eve?"

Edwina stood still, saying nothing. She didn't understand what the question meant.

"I see you are an idiot, whatever else you may be," said the king. "Answer me, once and for all, or I shall lose my patience. Are you human?"

"Yes, your Majesty," said Edwina. She understood that.

"And how, pray, did you come to enter my kingdom?"

"Please, your Majesty, I came in through a wardrobe."

"A wardrobe? What do you mean?"

"I - I opened a door and climbed in, and just found myself here, your Majesty," said Edwina.

"Ha!" said the king, speaking more to himself than to her. "A door from the world of humans! I have heard of such things. This may wreck all. But she is only one, and easily dealt with."

As he spoke these words, he rose from his seat, his eyes glowed and he looked Edwina full in the face as he raised his wand. Edwina felt sure that he was going to do something dreadful, but she was unable to move an inch. Then, just as she thought all was lost, he appeared to change his mind and put away his wand.

"My poor child," he said in quite a different voice, "how cold you look! Come and sit with me here on the sledge and I will put my cloak round you and we will talk."

Edwina didn't like this arrangement at all, but she dared not disobey; trembling, she stepped on to the sledge and sat at his feet, and he put a fold of his fur cloak round her and tucked it well in.

"Perhaps something hot to drink?" said the king. "Should you like that?"

"Yes please, your Majesty," said Edwina, whose teeth were chattering.

The king took from somewhere among his wrappings a very small bottle which looked as if it were made of copper. Then, he held out his arm and let one drop fall from it on the snow beside the sledge. Edwina saw the drop for a second in mid-air, shining like a diamond. But the moment it touched the snow there was a hissing sound and there stood a bejeweled cup full of something that steamed. The dwarf immediately got off the sleigh, picked it up and handed it to Edwina with a bow and a smile that displayed her yellow crooked teeth. Edwina began to sip the hot drink and felt much better. It was something she had never tasted before, very sweet and foamy and creamy, and it warmed her right down to her toes.

"It is dull, Daughter of Eve, to drink without eating," said the king presently. "What would you like best to eat?"

"Chocolates, please, your Majesty," said Edwina.

The king let another drop fall from his bottle on to the snow, and instantly there appeared a round box, tied with blue silk ribbon, which, when opened, turned out to contain several layers of the best chocolates imaginable. Each chocolate had a different centre; vanilla, nougat, cherry, toffee, strawberry, and Edwina had never tasted anything more delicious. She was quite warm now, and very comfortable.

While she was eating the king kept asking him questions. At first, Edwina tried not to speak with her mouth full, but soon she forgot about this and thought only of shovelling down as many chocolates as she could. The more she ate, the more she wanted to eat. She never wondered why the king should be so inquisitive. She told him she had one sister and two brothers, and that one of her brothers had already been in Nernya and had met a faun there, and no one except herself and her brother knew anything about Nernya. He seemed especially interested in the fact that there were four of them and kept on coming back to it. "You are sure there are just four of you?" he asked. "Two Daughters of Eve and Two Sons of Adam, neither more nor less?" and Edwina, with her mouth full of chocolate, kept saying, "Yes, I told you that before," and forgetting to call him "Your Majesty", but he didn't seem to mind now.

At last the chocolates were all finished, and Edwina looked very hard at the empty box and wished he would ask her whether she would like some more. The king knew quite well what she was thinking; for he knew these were enchanted chocolates. Anyone who tasted them, would want more and more of it, and would even, if allowed, go on eating it till they killed themselves. But he didn't offer him any more.

Instead, he said to her, "Daughter of Eve, I should so much like to see your brother and your two sisters. Will you bring them to see me?"

"I'll try," said Edwina, still looking at the empty box with the discarded wrappers.

"Because, if you did come again - bringing them with you of course - I'd be able to give you lots more chocolates. I can't do it now; the magic will only work once. In my own palace it would be another matter."

"Why can't we go to your palace now?" said Edwina. When she'd first got on to the sledge, she'd been frightened he might drive away with her to some unknown place where she couldn't return from; but she'd forgotten about that fear now.

"It is a lovely place, my palace," said the king, ignoring her question. "I am sure you would like it. There are whole rooms full of delicious chocolates, and what's more, I have no children of my own. I want a nice girl whom I could bring up as a princess and who would be queen of Nernya when I am gone. While she was a princess, she would wear a gold crown and eat all day long; and you are much the cleverest and handsomest young woman I've ever met. I think I would like to make you the princess - when you bring the others to visit me."

"Why not now?" Edmund asked. Her face was flushed, and her mouth and fingers were sticky and smeared with chocolate. She did not look either clever or handsome, whatever the king might say.

"Oh, but if I took you there now," he said, "I shouldn't see your brother and your sisters. I very much want to meet your charming relations. You are to be the princess and - later on – the queen; that is understood. But you must have courtiers and nobles. I will make your sister a duchess and your brothers dukes."

"They're not that charming," Edwina said, "and, anyway, I could always bring them some other time."

"Ah, but once you were in my house," said the king, "you might forget all about them. You would be enjoying yourself so much that you wouldn't want the bother of going to fetch them. No. You must go back to your own country now and come to me another day, with them, you understand. It is no good coming without them."

"But I don't even know the way back to my own country," Edwina pleaded.

"That's easy," answered the king. "Do you see that lamp?" He pointed with his wand and Edwina turned and saw the same lamp-post under which Luke had met the faun. "Straight on, beyond that, is the way to the World of Humans. And now look the other way'- here he pointed in the opposite direction - "and tell me if you can see two little hills rising above the trees."

"I think I can," said Edwina.

"Well, my palace is between those two hills. So next time you come you have only to find the lamppost, look for those two hills and walk through the wood till you reach my palace. But remember - you must bring the others with you. I might have to be very angry with you if you came alone."

"I'll do my best," Edwina promised.

"And, by the way," said the king casually, "you needn't tell them about me. Won't it be fun to keep it a secret between us two? Let's surprise them. Just bring them along to the two hills – I'm sure a clever girl like you could easily think of some excuse for doing that - and when you come to my palace, you could just say "Let's see who lives here" or something like that. I am sure that would be best. If your brother has met one of the fauns, he might have heard strange stories about me – nasty, untrue stories that might make him afraid to meet me. Fauns will say anything, you know, and now -"

"Please, please," said Edwina suddenly, "please couldn't I have just one chocolate to eat on the way home?"

"No, no," the king said with a laugh, "you must wait till next time." While he spoke, he gestured to the dwarf to drive on, but as the sledge swept away out of sight, the king waved to Edmund, calling out, "Next time! Next time! Don't forget. Come soon."

Edwina was still licking her lips and staring longingly after the sledge in the distance when she heard her name called and looking round she saw Luke coming towards her from another part of the wood.

"Oh, Edwina!" he cried. "So, you've got in too! Isn't it wonderful, and now-"

"Ok," said Edwina, "You were right and it's a magic wardrobe after all. I'll say I'm sorry if you like. But where on earth have you been all this time? I've been looking for you everywhere."

"If I'd known you had got in, I'd have waited for you," Luke said, who was too happy and excited to notice how Edmund snapped at him, or how flushed and chocolate smeared her face was. "I've been having lunch with dear Miss Bonadea Tumnus, the faun, sardines on toast, and she's very well and the White Warlock hasn't done anything to her for letting me go, so she thinks he can't have found out and perhaps everything is going to be all right after all."

"The White Warlock?" Edmund asked. "Who's he?"

"He's an awful person," Luke said. "He calls himself the king of Nernya though he's no right to be king at all, and all the fauns and dryads and naiads and dwarves and animals - at least all the good ones - simply hate her. And he can turn people into stone and does all kinds of terrible things. And he has made a magic so that it is always winter in Nernya - always winter, but never Christmas. And he drives about on a sledge, drawn by reindeer, with his wand in his hand and a crown on his head."

Edmund was already feeling uncomfortable from having eaten too many chocolates, and when she heard that the lord she'd made friends with was a dangerous warlock, she felt even more uncomfortable. But she still wanted to taste those chocolates again more than she wanted anything else in the world. She swiped her hand across her mouth to get rid of the chocolate smears without Luke noticing.

"Who told you all that stuff about the White Warlock?" she asked.

"Miss Bonadea, the faun," Luke said.

"You can't always believe what fauns say," Edwina told him, trying to sound as if she knew far more about them than Luke.

"Who said so?" Lucy asked.

"Everyone knows that," Edwina said. "Ask anybody you like. But it's cold standing here in the snow. Let's go home." She put her right hand in her pocket and secretly groped for her handkerchief and wiped her fingers.

"Yes, let's," said Luke. "Oh, Edwina, I'm so glad you've got in too. The others will have to believe in Nernya now both of us have been here. What fun it will be!"

But Edwina secretly thought that it would not much fun for her. She'd have to admit Luke had been right all along. She felt sure the other two would be on the side of the fauns and the animals; but she was already more than half on the side of the warlock. She didn't know what she would say, or how she would keep her secret once they were all talking about Nernya.

By this time, they had walked a good way. Then the prickly branches gave way to soft fur coats and the next moment they climbed out of the wardrobe in the empty room.

"You look awful, Edwina,' Luke said suddenly. "Don't you feel well?"

"I'm all right," said Edwina, but this wasn't true. She felt very sick.

"Come on then," Luke said, "let's find the others. We've got so much to tell them! And what wonderful adventures we can have in Nernya now."


	5. Chapter 5 Back on This Side of the Door

CHAPTER FIVE - BACK ON THIS SIDE OF THE DOOR

The game of hide-and-seek was still going on, so it took Edmund and Lucy some time to find the others. But when at last they were all together (which happened in the room with the harpsichord) Luke burst out with, "Peronel! Simon! It's true about Nernya. Edwina's seen it too. There is a real country you can get to through the wardrobe. Edwina and I have both been there. We met one another in the wood. Go on, Edwina; tell them."

"What's all this about, Eddie?" Peronel asked.

Right up to that moment Edwina had been feeling sick, and irritated at the thought of having to admit Luke had been right and was now annoyed at him for putting her on the spot but she hadn't made up her mind what to do. When Peronel suddenly asked her the question, she decided all at once to do the meanest and most spiteful thing she could think of. She decided to pretend Nernya didn't exist.

"Tell us, Eddie," said Simon.

And Edwina raised her eyebrows as if she were far older than Luke (although there was only a year's difference) and then sniggered and said, "Oh, yes, Luke and I have been playing. We pretended her story about a country in the wardrobe is true. Of course, there's nothing there really."

Poor Luke looked at her, gave a sob and ran out of the room.

Edwina who was becoming a nastier person every minute, just to rub it in said, "Look at him running off again. What's the matter with him? That's the worst of young kids, they always -"

"Shut up!" Peronel yelled at him, "You've been perfectly horrid to Lu ever since he made up this story about the wardrobe, and now you play make believe with him and set him off again. I bet you did it just to be mean."

"But it's all nonsense and make believe," Edwina said, very taken aback.

"Of course it's all nonsense and make believe," said Peronel, "that's just the point. Lu was perfectly all right when we left home, but since we've been down here he seems to be either going queer in the head or else turning into a most frightful liar. But whichever it is, what good do you think you do by jeering and sneering at him one day and encouraging him the next?"

"I thought - I thought," Edwina said; but she couldn't think of anything to say.

"You didn't think anything at all," Peronel said; "it's just spite. You've always liked being beastly to anyone smaller than yourself; I've seen that at school before now."

"Do stop it," said Simon; "it won't make things any better having a row between you two. Let's go and find Lu."

When they found Luke, a good deal later, everyone could see by his red rimmed eyes and pink nose that he had been crying. Nothing they could say to him made any difference. He stuck to his story and said, "I don't care what you think, or what you say. You can tell the professor or you can write to Father or you can do anything you like. I know I've met a faun in the woods and - I wish I'd stayed there and you are all horrible beasts."

It was an unpleasant evening. Luke was miserable and Edwina began to feel that her plan hadn't worked as well as she'd expected. The two older ones were really beginning to think Luke was going mad. They stood in the passage talking about it in whispers long after he'd gone to bed. The result was they decided they really would go and tell the whole thing to the professor the next morning. "She'll write to Mother if he thinks there is really something wrong with Lu," Peronel said, "it's beyond us."

So, the next morning, Peronel and Simon knocked at the study door, and the professor said "Come in," and got up and found chairs for them and said she was quite at their disposal. Then she sat listening to them with the tips of her fingers pressed together and never interrupting, till they had finished the whole story. After that she said nothing for quite a long time. Then she cleared her throat and said something unexpected.

"How do you know," she asked, "that your brother's story isn't true?"

"Oh, but -" began Simon, and then stopped. He could see from the old woman's face that she was perfectly serious. Then Simon frowned and said, "But Edwina said they had only been pretending."

"That is a point," the professor said, "which certainly deserves very careful consideration. For instance - if you will excuse me for asking the question - does your experience lead you to regard your sister or your brother as the more truthful?"

"That's just the funny thing about it, marm," Peronel said. "Up till now, I'd have said Luke every time."

"And what do you think, my dear?" the professor asked, turning to Simon.

"Well," said Simon, "usually, I'd say the same as Peronel, but this can't be true about the wood and the faun."

"That is more than I know," said the professor, "and accusing someone whom you have always found truthful to be lying, is a very serious thing indeed."

"We're afraid it mightn't even be lying," said Simon; "we thought there might be something wrong with Luke."

"Mad, you mean?" the professor said quite coolly. "Oh, you can make your minds easy about that. One has only to look at him and talk to him to see that he isn't mad."

"But then," said Simon, and stopped. He'd never dreamed that a grown-up would talk like the professor and didn't know what to think.

"Why don't they teach logic at these schools?" said the professor half to herself. "There are only three possibilities. Either your brother is telling lies, or he is mad, or he is telling the truth. You know she doesn't tell lies and it's obvious she is not mad. Therefore, unless any further evidence turns up, we must assume she's telling the truth."

Simon looked at her very hard to make sure from the expression on her face she wasn't making fun of them.

"But how could it be true, marm?" Peronel said.

"Why do you say that?" the professor asked.

"Well, for one thing," Peronel said, "if it was true why doesn't everyone find this country every time they go inside the wardrobe? I mean, there was nothing there when we looked; even Luke didn't pretend there was."

"What's that to do with it?" the professor asked.

"Well, marm, if things are real, surely they're there all the time."

"Are they?" the Professor asked and Peter didn't know quite what to say.

"But there was no time," said Simon. "Luke had no time to have gone anywhere, even if there was such a place. He came running after us the very moment we were out of the room. It was less than a minute, and he pretended to have been away for hours."

"That is the very thing that makes his story so likely to be true," the professor said. "If there really is a door in a wardrobe in this house that leads to some other world (and I should warn you that this is a very strange house, and even I know very little about it), I shouldn't be at all surprised to find the other world ran on its own time; so that however long you stay there it would never take up any of our time. On the other hand, I don't think many boys of his age would invent that idea for themselves. If he'd been pretending, he would have hidden for a while before coming out and telling his story."

"But do you really mean, marm," Peronel said, "that there could be other worlds - all over the place, just round the corner - like that?"

"Nothing is more probable," the professor said, taking off her spectacles and beginning to polish them, while she muttered to herself, "I wonder why don't they teach them to think at these schools?"

"But what are we to do?" said Simon. He felt the conversation was beginning to get off track.

"My dear young gentleman," the professor said, suddenly looking up with a very sharp expression at both of them, "there is one plan which no one has yet suggested and which is well worth trying."

"What's that?" asked Simon.

"We might all try minding our own business," she said, standing up and ushering them out of the room.

After this things were a good deal better for Luke. Peronel saw to it Edwina stopped jeering at him, and neither he nor anyone else felt inclined to talk about the wardrobe at all. And so for a time it looked as if all the adventures were coming to an end; but that was not to be.

This house of the professor's - which even she knew so little about - was so old and famous that people from all over England used to come and ask permission to see over it. It was the sort of house that is mentioned in guide books and even in long histories about the British Isles; and well it might be, for all manner of stories were told about it. When parties of sightseers arrived and asked to see the house, the professor always gave them permission, and Mr. O'Grady, the housekeeper, showed them round, telling them about the pictures, the harpsichord and the armour, and the rare books in the library. Mr. O'Grady didn't like children, and didn't like to be interrupted when he was telling visitors all the things he knew. He had said to Simon and Peronel almost on the first morning (along with a good many other instructions), "And please remember you're to keep out of the way whenever I'm taking a party over the house."

"Just as if any of us would want to waste half the morning trailing round with a crowd of strange grown-ups!" Edwina said, and the other three thought the same. That was how the adventures began for the second time.

A few mornings later, Peronel and Edwina were looking at the suit of armour, and wondering if they could take it to bits when the two boys rushed into the room and said, "Look out! Here comes the O'Grady and a whole gang with him."

"Sharp's the word," Peronel said, and all four made off through the door at the far end of the room.

But when they had got out into the Blue Room and beyond it, into the Library, they suddenly heard voices ahead of them, and realized that Mr. O'Grady must be bringing his party of sightseers up the back stairs - instead of up the front stairs as they had expected. And after that - whether it was that they lost their heads, or that Mr. O'Grady was trying to catch them, or that some magic in the house had come to life and was chasing them into Nernya, they seemed to find themselves being followed everywhere, until finally Simon said, "Oh blast those visitors! Here - let's get into the Wardrobe Room till they've passed. No one will follow us in there." But the moment they were inside, they heard the voices in the passage - and then someone fumbling at the door - and then they saw the handle turning.

"Quick!" Peronel hissed, "there's nowhere else for it," and flung open the wardrobe. All four of them bundled inside it and sat there, panting, in the dark. Peronel held the door closed but did not shut it.


	6. Chapter 6 Into The Wood

CHAPTER SIX - INTO THE WOOD

"I wish the O'Grady would hurry up and take all these people away," said Simon after a while. "I'm getting horribly cramped."

"And what a horrible smell of camphor!" Edwina said.

"I expect the pockets of these coats are full of it," said Simon, "to keep away the moths."

"There's something sticking into my back," Peronel said.

"And isn't it cold?" asked Simon.

"Now that you mention it, it is cold," Peronel said, "and darn it, it's wet too. What's the matter with this place? I'm sitting on something wet. It's getting wetter every minute." She struggled to her feet.

"Let's get out," Edwina suggested, "they've gone."

"O-o-oh!" said Simon suddenly, and everyone asked him what was the matter. "My head's wet," said Simon. He reached up and felt. "It's water and look! It's getting light - over there."

"By Juno, you're right," Peronel said, "and look there - and there. It's trees all round. And this wet stuff is snow. Why, I do believe we've got into Luke's wood after all."

And now there was no mistaking it and all four children stood blinking in the daylight of a winter day. Behind them were coats hanging on pegs, in front of them were snow-covered trees.

Peronel turned at once to Lucy. "I apologize for not believing you," she said, "I'm sorry. Will you shake hands?"

"Of course," said Luke, and did.

"And now," said Simon, "what do we do next?"

"Do?" Peronel said. "Why, go and explore the wood, of course."

"Ugh!" said Simon, stamping his feet, "it's pretty cold. What about putting on some of these coats?"

"They're not ours," Peter said doubtfully.

"I am sure nobody would mind," said Simon. "It isn't as if we going to take them out of the house; why we shan't even take them out of the wardrobe."

"I never thought of that, Si," Peronel said. "Of course, if you put it that way. No one could say you'd stolen a coat as long as you leave it in the wardrobe where you found it. And I suppose this whole country is in the wardrobe."

They immediately carried out Simon's very sensible plan. The coats were rather too big for them so that they came down to their heels and looked more like royal robes than coats when they had put them on. But they all felt a good deal warmer and each thought the others looked more suitably outfitted to the landscape and temperature.

"We could pretend we're Arctic explorers," said Luke.

"This is going to be exciting enough without pretending," Peronel said, as she looked up at the sky before leading the way forward into the forest. There were heavy darkish clouds overhead and it looked as if it might snow again before night.

"I say," began Edwina presently, "oughtn't we to be bearing a bit more to the left if we're aiming for the lamp-post?" She'd forgotten for the moment she must pretend never to have been in the wood before. The moment the words were out of her mouth, she realised she'd given herself away. Everyone stopped; everyone stared at her.

Peronel whistled. "So you really were here," she said, "that time Lu said he'd met you in here - and you made out he was lying." There was a dead silence. "Well, of all the nasty, spiteful little snakes…" said Peronel, and then shrugged her shoulders and said no more.

No one else said anything and presently the four resumed their journey; but Edwina was saying to herself, "I'll pay you all back for this, you pack of stuck-up, self-righteous prigs."

"Where are we going anyway?" asked Simon, chiefly for the sake of changing the subject.

"I think Lu ought to be the leader," Peronel said, "goodness knows he deserves it. Where should we go, Lu?"

"What about going to see Miss Bonadea?" said Luke. "She's the nice faun I told you about."

Everyone agreed to this except Edwina who said nothing, and off they went walking briskly, stamping their feet and trying not to trip over their feet, this happened more often to Edwina and Luke as they were the shortest. Luke proved a good leader. At first he wondered whether he 'd be able to find the way, but he recognized an odd looking tree on one place and a stump in another and eventually brought them into the little valley and at last to the very door of Miss Bonadea's cave. But there a unpleasant surprise awaited them.

The door had been wrenched off its hinges and broken to bits. Inside, the cave was dark and cold and had the damp feel and smell of a place that had not been lived in for several days. Snow had drifted in from the doorway and was heaped on the floor, turned grey by being mixed with something black, which turned out to be the charred sticks and ashes from the fire. Someone had apparently flung them about the room and then stamped them out. The blue and white crockery lay smashed on the floor and the picture of the faun's mother had been slashed into shreds with a knife. The books were torn up and scattered over the carpet.

"This was a waste of time," Edwina said; "it wasn't much use coming here, after all."

"What's this?" Peronel said, bending down. He'd just noticed a piece of paper which had been nailed through the carpet to the floor. He pulled the nail out and examined the paper.

"Is there anything written on it?" asked Simon.

"Yes, I think there is," Peronel answered, "but I can't read it in this light. Let's get out into the open air."

They all went out in the daylight and crowded round Peronel as she read out the following words,

"The former occupant of these premises, the Faun Bonadea is under arrest and awaiting her trial on a charge of High Treason against His Imperial Majesty, Jador, King of Nernya, Chatelaine of Cair Paranel, Emperor of the Long Islands, etc., also of comforting his said Majesty's enemies, harbouring spies and fraternizing with humans.

Signed MORGRIM, Captain of the Secret Police, LONG LIVE THE KING!"

The children stared at each other.

"I don't think I'm going to like this place after all," said Simon.

"Who is this king, Lu?" Peronel asked. "Do you know anything about him?"

"He isn't a real king at all," answered Luke; "he's a horrible warlock, the White Warlock. Everyone in the woods hate him. He's enchanted the whole country so that it's always winter here and never Christmas."

"I - I wonder if there's any point in going on," said Simon. "I mean, it doesn't seem particularly safe here and it looks as if it won't be much fun either. And it's getting colder every minute, and we've brought nothing to eat. What about just going home?"

"Oh, but we can't, we can't," said Luke suddenly, "don't you see? We can't just go home, not after this. It's all on my account that the poor faun has got into this trouble. She hid me from the warlock and showed me the way back. That's what it means by comforting the king's enemies and fraternizing with humans. We simply must try to rescue her."

"A lot we could do," Edwina said, "when we haven't even got anything to eat!" She was thinking yet again about the chocolates and wishing she had some.

"Shut up - you!" Peronel said, who was still very angry with Edwina. "What do you think, Si?"

"I've a horrid feeling that Lu is right," said Simon. "I don't want to go a step further and I wish we'd never come. But I think we must try to do something for Miss Whatever-her-name is - I mean the faun."

"That's what I feel too," said Peronel. "I'm worried about having no food with us. I'd vote for going back and getting something from the larder, only there doesn't seem to be any certainty of getting into this country again when once you've got out of it. I think we'll have to go on."

"So do I," said both the boys. Edwina frowned but knew she would be outvoted.

"If only we knew where the poor lass was imprisoned!" Peronel said.

They were all still wondering what to do next, when Luke said, "Look! There's a blackbird. It's the first bird I've seen here. I say! I wonder can birds talk in Nernya? It almost looks as if it wanted to say something to us." Then he turned to the blackbird and asked, "Please, can you tell us where Miss Bonadea the Faun has been taken to?"

As he said this, he took a step towards the bird. It at once flew away but only as far as to the next tree. There it perched and looked at them very hard as if it understood everything they had been saying. Almost without noticing that they had done so, the four children went a step or two nearer to it. At this the blackbird flew away again to the next tree and once more looked at them very hard. Its yellow eye-rings gleamed.

"Do you know," said Luke, "I really believe she means us to follow her."

"I've an idea she does," said Susan. "What do you think, Peronel?"

"Well, we might as well try it," Peronel answered.

The blackbird appeared to understand the matter thoroughly. It kept going from tree to tree, always a few yards ahead of them, but always so near that they could easily follow it. In this way it led them on, slightly downhill. Wherever the blackbird alighted, a little shower of snow would fall off the branch. Presently, the clouds parted overhead, the winter sun came out and the snow all around them grew dazzlingly bright. They had been travelling in this way for about half an hour, with the two boys in front, when Edwina said to Peronel, "if you're not still too high and mighty to talk to me, I've something to say which you'd better listen to."

"What is it?" Peronel asked.

"Hush! Not so loud," Edwina said, "there's no good frightening the boys. But have you realized what we're doing?"

"What?" Peronel asked, lowering her voice to a whisper.

"We're following a guide we know nothing about. How do we know whose side that bird is on? Mightn't it be leading us into a trap?"

"That's a nasty idea. Still - a blackbird, you know. They're good birds in all the stories I've ever read. I'm sure a sparrow wouldn't be on the wrong side."

"It if comes to that, which is the right side? How do we know that the fauns are in the right and the king (yes, I know we've been told he's a warlock) is in the wrong? We don't really know anything about either."

"That faun saved Luke."

"She said she did. But how do we know? And there's another thing too. Has anyone the least idea of the way home from here?"

"Good Lady!" said Peronel, "I hadn't thought of that."

"And no chance of dinner either," said Edwina. She was still longing for the chocolates.


	7. Chapter 7 A Day With The Beavers

CHAPTER SEVEN

A DAY WITH THE BEAVERS

While the two girls were whispering behind, both the boys suddenly cried "Oh!" and stopped.

"The blackbird!" cried Luke, "the blackbird. It's flown away." And so it had - right out of sight.

"And now what are we to do?" said Edwina, giving Peronel a look which was as much as to say "What did I tell you?"

"Shush! Look!" said Simon.

"What?" said Peronel.

"There's something moving among the trees over there to the left."

They all stared as hard as they could, and no one felt very comfortable.

"There it goes again," said Simon presently.

"I saw it that time too," said Peronel. "It's still there. It's just gone behind that big tree."

"What is it?" asked Luke, trying very hard not to sound nervous.

"Whatever it is," said Peronel, "it's dodging us. It's something that doesn't want to be seen."

"Let's go home," said Simon. And then, though nobody said it out loud, everyone suddenly realized the same fact that Edwina had whispered to Peronel. They were lost.

"What's it like?" said Luke.

"It's - it's a kind of animal," said Simon; and then, "Look! Look! Quick! There it is."

They all saw it this time, a whiskered furry face which had looked out at them from behind a tree.

But this time it didn't immediately draw back. Instead, the animal put its paw against its mouth, signalling to them to be quiet. Then it disappeared again. The children, all stood holding their breath.

A moment later the stranger came out from behind the tree, glanced all round as if it were afraid someone was watching, said "Hush", made signs to them to join it in the thicker bit of wood where it was standing, and then once more disappeared.

"I know what it is," said Peronel, "it's a beaver. I saw the tail."

"It wants us to go to it," said Simon, "and it's warning us not to make a noise."

"I know," Peronel said. "The question is, are we to go to it or not? What do you think, Lu?"

"I think it's a nice beaver," said Luke.

"Yes, but how do we know for sure?" Edwina asked.

"Shan't we have to risk it?" asked Simon. "I mean, it's no good just standing here and I want some dinner."

At this moment the beaver again popped its head out from behind the tree and beckoned earnestly to them.

"Come on," said Peronel, "let's give it a try. All keep close together. We ought to be a match for one beaver if it turns out to be an enemy."

So the children all got close together and walked up to the tree and in behind it, and there, sure enough, they found the beaver; but it still drew back, saying to them in a hoarse throaty whisper,

"Come further in. Right in here. We're not safe in the open!"

Only when it had led them into a dark spot where four trees grew so close together that their boughs met and the brown earth and pine needles could be seen underfoot because no snow had been able to fall there, did it begin to talk to them.

"Are you the Daughters of Eve and Sons of Adam?" it asked.

"We're some of them," Peronel said.

"S-s-s-sh!" said the beaver, "not so loud please. We're not safe even here."

"Why, who are you afraid of?" Peronel asked. "There's no one here but ourselves."

"There are the trees," said the beaver. "They're always listening. Most of them are on our side, but there are trees that would betray us to him; you know who I mean," and it nodded its head several times.

"If it comes to talking about sides," said Edwina, "how do we know you're a friend?"

"Not meaning to be rude, Mrs. Beaver," added Peronel, "but you see, we're strangers."

"Quite right, quite right," said the beaver. "Here is my token." With these words, it held a little white object up to them. They all looked at it in surprise, till suddenly Luke said, "Oh, of course. It's my handkerchief - the one I gave to poor Miss Bonadea."

"That's right," said the beaver. "Poor lady, she got wind of the arrest before it actually happened and handed this over to me. She said that if anything happened to her I must meet you here and take you on to -" Here the beaver's voice sank into silence and it gave one or two very mysterious nods. Then signalling to the children to stand as close around it as they possibly could, so that their faces were actually tickled by its whiskers, it added in a low whisper, "They say Aslaine is on the move - perhaps has already landed."

And now a very curious thing happened. None of the children knew who Aslaine was any more than you do; but the moment the beaver had spoken these words everyone felt quite different. At the name of Aslaine each one of the children felt something jump in its inside. Edwina felt a sensation of mysterious horror. Peronel felt suddenly brave and adventurous. Simon felt as if some delicious smell or some delightful strain of music had just floated by her. And Luke got the feeling he had when he woke up in the morning and realised it was the beginning of the holidays or the beginning of summer.

"And what about Miss Bonadea," said Luke; "where is she?"

"S-s-s-sh," said the beaver, "not here. I must bring you where we can have a real talk and also dinner."

No one except Edwina felt any difficulty about trusting the beaver now, and everyone, including Edwina, was very glad to hear the word "dinner".

They therefore all hurried along behind their new friend who led them at a surprisingly quick pace, and always in the thickest parts of the forest, for over an hour. Everyone was feeling very tired and very hungry when suddenly the trees began to get thinner in front of them and the ground to fall steeply downhill. A minute later they came out under the open sky (the sun was still shining) and found themselves looking down on a fine sight.

They were standing on the edge of a steep, narrow valley at the bottom of which ran - at least it would have been running if it hadn't been frozen - a fairly large river. Just below them a dam had been built across this river, and when they saw it, everyone suddenly remembered that of course beavers are always making dams and felt quite sure that Mrs. Beaver had made this one. They also noticed that she now had a sort of modest expression on her face.

So, it was only common politeness when Simon said, "What a lovely dam!"

Mrs. Beaver didn't say "Hush" this time but "Merely a trifle! Merely a trifle! And it isn't really finished!"

Above the dam there was what ought to have been a deep pool but was now, of course, a level floor of dark green ice. And below the dam, much lower down, was more ice, but instead of being smooth this was all frozen into the foamy and wavy shapes in which the water had been rushing along at the very moment when the frost came. And where the water had been trickling over and spurting through the dam there was now a glittering wall of icicles, as if the side of the dam had been covered all over with flowers and wreaths and festoons of the purest sugar. And out in the middle, and partly on top of the dam was a funny little house shaped rather like an enormous beehive and from a hole in the roof smoke was going up, so that when they saw it, they at once thought of cooking and became hungrier than they were before.

That was what the others chiefly noticed, but Edwina noticed something else. A little lower down the river there was another small river which came down another small valley to join it. And looking up that valley, Edwina could see two small hills, and she was almost sure they were the two hills which the White Warlock had pointed out to her when she parted from him at the lamp-post that other day. And then between them, she thought, must be his palace, only a mile off or less. And she thought about chocolates and about being a queen ("And I wonder how Peronel will like that?" she asked herself) and horrible ideas came into her head.

"Here we are," said Mrs. Beaver, "and it looks as if Mr. Beaver is expecting us. I'll lead the way. But be careful and don't slip."

The top of the dam was wide enough to walk on, though not (for humans) a very nice place to walk because it was covered with ice, and though the frozen pool was level with it on one side, there was a nasty drop to the lower river on the other. Luke did slip once but luckily Peronel caught him. Along this route Mrs. Beaver led them in single file right out to the middle where they could look a long way up the river and a long way down it.

And when they had reached the middle they were at the door of the house.

"Here we are, Mr. Beaver," said Mrs. Beaver, "I've found them. Here are the Daughters and Sons of Eve and Adam.' - and they all went in.

The first thing Luke noticed as he went in was a burring sound, and the first thing he saw was a kind looking old he-beaver sitting in the corner with a thread in his mouth working busily at his sewing machine, and it was from it that the sound came. He stopped his work and got up as soon as the children came in.

"So you've come at last!" he said, holding out both his wrinkled old paws. "At last! To think that ever I should live to see this day! The potatoes are on boiling and the kettle's singing and I daresay, Mrs. Beaver, you'll get us some fish."

"That I will," said Mrs. Beaver, and he went out of the house (Peronel went with her), and across the ice of the deep pool to where she had a little hole in the ice which she kept open every day with his hatchet. They took a pail with them. Mrs. Beaver sat down quietly at the edge of the hole (she didn't seem to mind it being so chilly), looked hard into it, then suddenly shot in her paw, and before you could say Jackie Robinson, had whisked out a beautiful perch. Then she did it all over again until they had a fine catch of fish.

Meanwhile the boys and Edwina were helping Mr. Beaver to fill the kettle and lay the table and cut the bread and put the plates in the oven to heat and draw a huge jug of beer for Mrs. Beaver from a barrel which stood in one corner of the house, and to put on the frying-pan and get the dripping hot.

Luke thought the Beavers had a very snug little home though it was not at all like Miss Bonadea's cave. There were no books or pictures, and instead of beds there were bunks, like on board ship, built into the wall. And there were hams and strings of onions hanging from the roof, and against the walls were gum boots and oilskins and hatchets and pairs of shears and spades and trowels and things for carrying mortar in and fishing-rods and fishing-nets and sacks. And the cloth on the table, though very clean, was very rough.

Just as the frying-pan was nicely hissing, Peronel and Mrs. Beaver came in with the perch, which Mrs. Beaver had already opened with her sharp knife and cleaned out in the open air. The new-caught fish smelled wonderful while they were frying and the hungry children longed for them to be done and how very much hungrier still they became before Mr. Beaver said, "Now we're nearly ready."

Simon drained the potatoes and then put them all back in the empty pot to dry on the side of the range while Luke was helping Mr. Beaver to dish up the trout, so that in a very few minutes everyone was drawing up their stools (it was all three-legged stools in the Beavers' house except for Mr. Beaver's own special rocking chair beside the fire) and preparing to enjoy themselves.

There was a jug of creamy milk for the children (Mrs. Beaver stuck to beer) and a great big lump of deep yellow butter in the middle of the table from which everyone took as much as she (or he) wanted to go with her (or his) potatoes. All the children thought that there's nothing to beat good freshwater fish if you eat it when it has come out of the frying pan half a minute ago. And when they had finished the fish, Mr. Beaver brought unexpectedly out of the oven a great and gloriously sticky marmalade roll, steaming hot, and there was a jug full of thick cream. At the same time, he moved the kettle on to the fire, so that when they had finished the marmalade roll, the tea was made and ready to be poured out. And when each person had got her (or his) mug of tea, each person shoved back her (or his) stool so as to be able to lean against the wall and gave a long sigh of contentment.

"And now," said Mrs. Beaver, pushing away her empty beer glass and pulling her mug of tea towards her, "If you'll just wait till I've got my pipe lit up and going nicely - why, now we can get to business. It's snowing again," she added, cocking her eye at the window. "That's all the better, because it means we shan't have any visitors; and if anyone should have been trying to follow you, why she won't find any tracks."


	8. Chapter 8 - What Happened After Dinner

Chapter Eight - What Happened After Dinner

"And now," said Luke, "do please tell us what's happened to Miss Bonadea."

"Ah, that's bad," said Mrs. Beaver, shaking her head. "That's a very, very bad business. There's no doubt she was taken off by the police. I got that from a robin who saw it done."

"But where's she been taken to?" asked Luke.

"Well, they were heading northwards when they were last seen, and we all know what that means."

"No, we don't," said Simon.

Mrs. Beaver shook her head in a very gloomy fashion. "I'm afraid it means they were taking her to His house," she said.

"But what'll they do to her, Mrs. Beaver?" gasped Luke.

"Well," said Mrs. Beaver, "you can't exactly say for sure. But there's not many taken in there that ever comes out again. Statues. All full of statues they say it is - in the courtyard and up the stairs and in the hall. People He's turned" - (she paused and shuddered) "turned into stone."

"But, Mrs. Beaver," said Luke, "can't we - I mean we must do something to save her. It's too dreadful and it's all on my account."

"I don't doubt you'd save her if you could, dearie," said Mr. Beaver, "but you've no chance of getting into that house against His will and ever coming out alive."

"Couldn't we have some stratagem?" Peronel said. "I mean couldn't we dress up as something, or pretend to be - oh, beggars or anything - or watch till he was gone out - or- oh, hang it all, there must be some way. This faun saved my brother at her own risk, Mrs. Beaver. We can't just leave her to be - to be - to have that done to her."

"It's no good, Daughter of Eve," Mrs. Beaver said, "no good your trying, of all people. But now that Aslaine is on the move—"

"Oh, yes! Tell us about Aslaine!" said three of the children at once; for once again that strange feeling - like the first signs of spring, like good news, had come over them.

"Who is Aslaine?" asked Simon.

"Aslaine?" Mrs. Beaver said. "Why, don't you know? She's the queen. She's the lady of the whole wood, but not often here, you understand. Never in my time or my mother's time. But the word has reached us that She has come back. She is in Nernya at this moment. She'll settle the White King all right. It is She, not you, that will save Miss Bonadea."

"He won't turn her into stone too?" Edwina asked.

"Lord love you, Daughter of Eve, what a simple thing to say!" Mrs. Beaver answered with a great laugh.

Edwina didn't reply but she added Mrs. Beaver to the list of people that she wanted to make sorry.

"Turn Her into stone? If He can stand on His two feet and look Her in the face it'll be the most He can do and more than I expect of Him. No, no. She'll put all to rights as it says in an old rhyme in these parts:

'Wrong will be right, when Aslaine comes in sight,

At the sound of Her roar, sorrows will be no more,

When She bares Her teeth, winter meets its death,

And when She raises Her head, there'll be no more dread.'

You'll understand when you see her."

"But shall we see her?" asked Simon.

"Why, Son of Adam, that's what I brought you here for. I'm to lead you where you shall meet Her," Mrs. Beaver said.

"Is-is she a woman?" asked Luke.

"Aslaine a woman!" Mrs. Beaver said sternly. "Certainly not. I tell you She is the queen of the wood and the daughter of the great Empress-beyond-the-Sea. Don't you know who is the Queen of Beasts? Aslaine is a lioness - the Lioness, the Great Lioness."

"Ooh!" said Simon, "I'd thought she was a woman. Is she - quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lioness."

"That you will, dearie, and no mistake," said Mr. Beaver; "if there's anyone who can appear before Aslaine without their knees knocking, they're either braver than most or else just silly."

"Then she isn't safe?" said Luke.

"Safe?" Mrs. Beaver said. "Don't you hear what Mr. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? Course She isn't safe. But She's good. She's the queen, I tell you."

"I'm longing to see her," Peronel said, "even if I do feel frightened when it comes to the point."

"That's right, Daughter of Eve," Mrs. Beaver said, bringing her paw down on the table with a crash that made all the cups and saucers rattle, "And so you shall. Word has been sent that you are to meet Her, tomorrow if you can, at the Stone Table."

"Where's that?" said Luke.

"I'll show you," Mrs. Beaver said. "It's down the river, a good step from here. I'll take you to it!"

"But meanwhile what about poor Miss Bonadea?" asked Luke.

"The quickest way you can help her is by going to meet Aslaine," Mrs. Beaver said, "once She's with us, then we can begin doing things. Not that we don't need you too. For that's another of the old rhymes:

'When Eve's flesh and Adam's bone

Sits at Cair Paranel in throne,

The evil time will be over and done.'

So things must be drawing near their end now She's come, and you've come. We've heard of Aslaine coming into these parts before - long ago, nobody can say when. But there's never been any of your race here before."

"That's what I don't understand, Mrs. Beaver," Peronel said, "I mean isn't the Warlock himself human?"

"He'd like us to believe it," Mrs. Beaver said, "and it's on that that He bases his claim to be king. But He's no Son of Adam. He comes of your mother Eve's" (here Mrs. Beaver bowed) "your mother Eve's first husband, him they called Lilion. And he was one of the Jinn. That's what He comes from on one side. And on the other, He comes of the giants. No, no, there isn't a drop of real human blood in the warlock."

"That's why He's bad all through, Mrs. Beaver," said Mr. Beaver.

"True enough, Mr. Beaver," she replied, "there may be two views about humans (meaning no offence to the present company). But there's no two views about things that look like humans and aren't."

"I've known good dwarfs," said Mr. Beaver.

"So 've I, now you come to speak of it," his wife said, "but precious few, and they were the ones least like men. But in general, take my advice, when you meet anything that's going to be human and isn't yet, or used to be human once and isn't now, or ought to be human and isn't, you keep your eyes on it and feel for your hatchet. And that's why the warlock is always on the lookout for any humans in Nernya. He's been watching for you this many a year, and if He knew there were four of you, He'd be more dangerous still."

"What's that to do with it?" Peronel asked.

"Because of another prophecy," said Mrs. Beaver. "Down at Cair Paranel - that's the castle on the sea coast down at the mouth of this river which ought to be the capital of the whole country if all was as it should be - down at Cair Paranel there are four thrones. It's a saying in Nernya time out of mind that when two Daughters of Eve and two Sons of Adam sit in those four thrones, then it will be the end not only of the White Warlock's reign but of his life, and that is why we had to be so cautious as we came along, for if He knew about you four, your lives wouldn't be worth a shake of my whiskers!"

The children had been attending so hard to what Mrs. Beaver was telling them that they had noticed nothing else for a long time. Then during the moment of silence that followed her last remark, Luke suddenly asked, "I say - where's Edwina?"

There was a dreadful pause, and then everyone began asking "Who saw her last? How long has she been missing? Is he outside?" and then all rushed to the door and looked out. The snow was falling thickly and steadily, the green ice of the pool had vanished under a thick white blanket, and from where the little house stood in the centre of the dam you could hardly see either bank. Out they went, plunging well over their ankles into the soft new snow, and went around the house in every direction.

"Edwina! Edwina!" they called till they were hoarse. But the silently falling snow seemed to muffle their voices and there was not even an echo in answer.

"How perfectly dreadful!" said Simon as they at last came back in despair. "Oh, how I wish we'd never come."

"What on earth are we to do, Mrs. Beaver?" Peronel asked.

"Do?" Mrs. Beaver said, who was already putting on her snow-boots, "do? We must be off at once. We haven't a moment to spare!"

"We'd better divide into four search parties," Peronel said, "and all go in different directions. Whoever finds her must come back here at once and —"

"Search parties, Daughter of Eve?" Mrs. Beaver asked. "What for?"

"Why, to look for Edwina, of course!"

"There's no point in looking for her," Mrs. Beaver said.

"What do you mean?" asked Simon. "She can't be far away yet. And we've got to find her. Why are you saying there's no use looking for her?"

"The reason there's no use looking," Mrs. Beaver said, "is that we know already where she's gone!"

The three children stared in amazement.

"Don't you understand?" Mrs. Beaver asked. "She's gone to Him, to the White Warlock. She has betrayed us all."

"Oh, surely … oh, really!" said Simon "She can't have done that."

"Can't she?" Mrs. Beaver said, looking very hard at the three children, and everything they wanted to say died on their lips, for each felt suddenly quite certain inside that this was exactly what Edwina had done.

"But will she know the way?" Peronel said.

"Has she been in this country before?" Mrs. Beaver asked. "Has she ever been here alone?"

"Yes," said Luke, almost in a whisper. "I'm afraid she has."

"And did she tell you what she'd done or who she'd met?"

"Well, no, she didn't," said Luke.

"Then mark my words," Mrs. Beaver said, "she has already met the White Warlock and joined His side and been told where He lives. I didn't like to mention it before (she being your sister and all) but the moment I set eyes on that sister of yours, I said to myself 'Twofaced'. She had the look of one who has been with the warlock and eaten His food. You can always tell them if you've lived long in Narnia; something about their eyes."

"All the same," said Peronel in a somewhat choking sort of voice, "we'll still have to go and look for her. She is our sister after all, even if she is rather a little monster. And she's only a kid."

"Go to the warlock's house?" said Mrs. Beaver. "Don't you see that the only chance of saving either her or yourselves is to keep away from Him?"

"How do you mean?" asked Luke.

"Why, all He wants is to get all four of you (He's thinking all the time of those four thrones at Cair Paravel). Once you were all four inside His house, His job would be done, and there'd be four new statues in His collection before you'd had time to speak. But He'll keep her alive as long as she's the only one He's got, because He'll want to use her as a decoy; as bait to catch the rest of you with."

"Oh, can no one help us?" wailed Luke.

"Only Aslaine," said Mrs. Beaver. "We must go on and meet Her. That's our only chance now."

"It seems to me, my dears," Mr. Beaver said, "that it is very important to know just when she slipped away. How much she can tell Him depends on how much she heard. For instance, had we started talking of Aslaine before she left? If not, then we may do very well, for He won't know that Aslaine has come to Nernya, or that we are meeting Her, and will be quite off His guard as far as that is concerned."

"I don't remember her being here when we were talking about Aslaine —" began Peronel, but Luke interrupted her.

"Oh yes, she was," he said miserably; "don't you remember? It was she who asked whether the warlock couldn't turn Aslaine into stone too?"

"So she did, by Juno," Peronel said, "just the sort of thing she would say, too!"

"Worse and worse," Mrs. Beaver said, "and the next thing is this. Was she still here when I told you that the place for meeting Aslaine was the Stone Table?"

And of course, no one knew the answer to this question.

"Because, if she was," Mrs. Beaver continued, "then He'll simply sledge down in that direction and get between us and the Stone Table and catch us on our way down. In fact we shall be cut off from Aslaine. "

"But that isn't what He'll do first," Mr. Beaver said, "not if I know Him. The moment that Edwina tells Him that we're all here, He'll set out to catch us this very night, and if she's been gone about half an hour, He'll be here in about another twenty minutes."

"You're right, Mr. Beaver," his wife said, "we must all get away from here. There's not a moment to lose."


	9. Chapter 9 In the Warlock's Castle

Chapter Nine - In The Warlock's Castle

And now what had happened to Edwina. She had eaten her share of the dinner, but she hadn't really enjoyed it even the jam roll and cream, because she was thinking all the time about those delicious chocolates. She had heard the conversation, and hadn't enjoyed it much either, because she kept on thinking that the others were taking no notice of her and trying to give her the cold shoulder. They weren't, but she imagined it. Edwina had listened until Mrs. Beaver told them about Aslaine, and until she had heard the whole arrangement for meeting Aslaine at the Stone Table. It was then that she began to quietly edge herself around the green curtain which hung over the door.

For the mention of Aslaine gave her a mysterious and horrible feeling just as it gave the others a mysterious and lovely feeling.

Just as Mrs. Beaver had been repeating the rhyme about Eve's flesh and Adam's bone, Edwina had been very quietly turning the door handle. Just before Mrs. Beaver had begun telling them that the White Warlock wasn't really human at all but half a Jinn and half a giant, Edwina had got outside into the snow and cautiously closed the door behind her.

Even now Edwina wasn't quite so bad that she actually wanted her sister and brothers to be turned into stone. She did want more chocolates and to be a princess (and later a queen) and to pay Peronel out for calling her a monster. As for what the warlock would do with the others, she didn't want him to be particularly nice to them - certainly not to put them on the same level as herself; but she managed to believe, or to pretend she believed, that he wouldn't do anything very bad to them.

"Because," she said to herself, "all these people who say nasty things about him are his enemies and probably half of it isn't true. He was jolly nice to me, anyway, much nicer than they are. I expect he is the rightful king really. Anyway, he'll be better than that awful Aslaine!" At least, that was the excuse she made in her own mind for what she was doing. It wasn't a very good excuse, however, for deep down inside her, she really knew that the White Warlock was bad and cruel.

The first thing she realised when she got outside and found the snow falling all round her, was that she had left her coat behind in the Beavers' house. And of course there was no chance of going back to get it now. The next thing she realized was that the daylight was almost gone, for it had been nearly three o'clock when they sat down to dinner and the winter days were short. She hadn't reckoned on this; but she had to make the best of it. So she turned up her collar and shuffled across the top of the dam (luckily it wasn't so slippery since the snow had fallen) to the far side of the river.

It was pretty bad when she reached the far side. It was growing darker every minute and what with that and the snowflakes swirling all round her, she could hardly see three feet ahead. And then too there was no road. She slipped into deep drifts of snow, and skidded on frozen puddles, and tripped over hidden tree-stumps, and slid down steep banks, and barked her shins against rocks, till she was wet and cold and bruised all over. The silence and the loneliness were dreadful.

She might have given up the whole plan, gone back, owned up and made friends with the others, if she hadn't happened to say to herself, "When I'm Queen of Nernya the first thing I shall do will be to make some decent roads." And of course that set her off thinking about being a queen and all the other things she would do, and this cheered her up a good deal. She had just settled in her mind what sort of palace she would have and how many cars and all about her private cinema and where the principal railways would run and what laws she would make against beavers and dams and was putting the finishing touches to some schemes for keeping Peronel in her place, when the weather changed.

First the snow stopped. Then a wind sprang up and it became freezing cold. Finally, the clouds rolled away, and the moon came out. It was a full moon and, shining on all that snow, it made everything almost as bright as day - only the shadows were rather confusing.

Edwina would never have found her way if the moon hadn't come out by the time she got to the other river she had seen (when they first arrived at the Beavers'), a smaller river flowing into the great one lower down. She now reached this and turned to follow it up. But the little valley down which it came was much steeper and rockier than the one she had just left and much overgrown with bushes, so that she could not have managed it at all in the dark. Even as it was, Edwina got wet through for she had to stoop under branches and great loads of snow came sliding off on to her back. And every time this happened, she thought more and more how she hated Peronel - just as if all this had been Peronel's fault.

But at last she came to a part where it was more level and the valley opened out. And there, on the other side of the river, quite close to her, in the middle of a little plain between two hills, she saw what must be the White Warlock's house. And the moon was shining brighter than ever. The house was really a small castle. It seemed to be all towers; little towers with long pointed spires on them, sharp as needles. They looked like huge dunce's caps or sorcerer's caps. And they shone in the moonlight and their long shadows looked strange on the snow. Edwina began to be afraid of the castle.

But it was too late to think of turning back now.

She crossed the river on the ice and walked up to the castle. There was nothing stirring; not the slightest sound anywhere. Even her own feet made no noise on the deep, newly fallen snow. She walked on and on, past corner after corner of the house, and past turret after turret to find the door. She had to go right round to the far side before she found it., The great iron gates stood wide open in a huge arch.

Edwina crept up to the arch and looked inside into the courtyard, and there she saw a sight that nearly made her heart stop beating. Just inside the gate, with the moonlight shining on it, stood an enormous lioness crouched as if she was ready to spring. And Edwina stood in the shadow of the arch, afraid to go on and afraid to go back, with her knees knocking together. She stood there so long that her teeth would have been chattering with cold even if they had not been chattering with fear. It seemed to Edwina to last for hours.

Then at last she began to wonder why the lioness was standing so still - for she hadn't moved one inch since she first set eyes on it. Edwina now ventured a little nearer, still keeping in the shadow of the arch as much as she could. She now saw from the way the lioness was standing that she couldn't have been looking at her at all.

 _But supposing she turns her head?_

In fact she was staring at something else namely a little dwarf who stood with her back to the lioness about four feet away.

 _Aha!_ _When she springs at the dwarf then will be my chance to escape._

But still the lioness never moved, nor did the dwarf. And now at last, Edwina remembered what the others had said about the White Warlock turning people into stone. Perhaps this was only a stone lioness.

And as soon as she had thought of that, she noticed that the lioness's back and the top of her head were covered with snow. Of course she must be only a statue! No living animal would have let itself get covered with snow. Then very slowly and with her heart beating as if it would burst, Edwina ventured to go up to the lioness. Even now she hardly dared to touch her, but at last she put out her hand, very quickly, and did. She was cold stone. Edwina had been frightened of a mere statue!

The relief which Edwina felt was so great that in spite of the cold she suddenly got warm all over right down to her toes, and at the same time there came into her head what seemed a perfectly lovely idea.

 _Probably, this is the great lioness, Aslaine that they were all talking about. He's caught her already and turned her into stone. So that's the end of all their fine ideas about her! Pooh! Who's afraid of Aslaine?_

She stood there gloating over the stone lioness, and presently she did something very silly and childish. Edwina took a stump of lead pencil out of her pocket and scribbled a moustache on the lioness's upper lip and then a pair of spectacles on her eyes.

Then she said, "Yah! Silly old Aslaine! How do you like being a statue? You thought yourself mighty fine, didn't you?" Her words echoed around the courtyard.

But in spite of the scribbles on it, the face of the great stone beast still looked so terrible, and sad, and noble, staring up in the moonlight, that Edwina didn't really get any fun out of her vandalism and jeering at her. She turned away and began to cross the courtyard.

As she got into the middle of it, she saw that there were dozens of statues all about - standing here and there rather as the pieces stand on a chess-board when the game is half-way through. There were stone satyrs, wolves, bears, foxes and cats of stone. There were lovely stone shapes that looked like women but who were really the spirits of trees. There was the great shape of a centaur and a winged horse and a long lithe creature that Edwina took to be a dragon. They all looked so strange standing there perfectly life-like and also perfectly still, in the bright cold moonlight, that it was eerie work crossing the courtyard. Right in the very middle stood a huge shape like a woman, but as tall as a tree, with a fierce face and shaggy hair and a great club in her right hand. Even though she knew that she was only a stone giant and not a live one, Edwina did not like going past her.

She now saw that there was a dim light showing from a doorway on the far side of the courtyard. She went to it; there was a flight of stone steps going up to an open door. Edwina went up them.

Across the threshold lay a great wolf.

 _It's all right, it's all right. It's only a stone wolf. It can't hurt me._

To prove it, she placed her foot on the body. To her horror, it gave under her foot. Instantly the huge creature rose, knocking Edwina to the ground. All the hair bristled along its back, it puts its snout close to Edwina's face, opened a great, red mouth and said in a growling voice, "Who's there? Who's there? Stay still, stranger, and tell me who you are."

"If you please, marm," said Edwina, trembling so that she could hardly speak, "my name is Edwina, and I'm the Daughter of Eve that His Majesty met in the wood the other day and I've come to bring him the news that my sister and brothers are now in Nernya - quite close, in the beavers' house. He - he wanted to see them."

"I will tell His Majesty," said the wolf. "Meanwhile, get up and stand still on the threshold, as you value your life." Then it vanished into the house.

Edwina stood up and waited, her fingers aching with cold and her heart pounding in her chest. Presently the grey wolf, Morgrim, the Chief of the Warlock's Secret Police, bounded back and said, "Come in! Come in! Fortunate favourite of the king - or else not so fortunate."

She found herself in a long gloomy hall with many pillars, full, as the courtyard had been, of statues. The one nearest the door was a little faun cringing and holding her arms in front of her face as if to try and ward off the horrible thing that was happening to her. Edwina couldn't help wondering if this might be Luke's friend. The only light came from a single lamp and close beside this sat the White Warlock on a ornately carved silver throne.

"I'm come, your Majesty," said Edwina, rushing eagerly forward.

"How dare you come alone?" said the warlock in a terrible voice. "Did I not tell you to bring the others with you?"

"Please, your Majesty," said Edwina, "I've done the best I can. I've brought them quite close. They're in the little house on top of the dam just up the river with Mrs. and Mr. Beaver."

A slow cruel smile came over the warlock's face.

"Is this all your news?" he asked.

"No, your Majesty," said Edwina, and proceeded to tell him all she had heard before leaving the Beavers' house.

"What! Aslaine?" cried the king, "Aslaine! Is this true? If I find you have lied to me —"

"Please, I'm only repeating what they said," Edwina stammered.

But the king, who was no longer listening to her, clapped his hands. Instantly the same dwarf whom Edwina had seen with him before, appeared.

"Make ready our sledge," ordered the warlock, "and use the harness without bells."


	10. Chapter 10 The Spell Begins to Break

Chapter Ten - The Spell Begins To Break

As soon as Mrs. Beaver said, "There's no time to lose," everyone began bundling themselves into coats. Everyone, except Mr. Beaver, who started picking up sacks and laying them on the table and said, "Now, Mrs. Beaver, just reach down that ham. And here's a packet of tea, and there's sugar, and some matches. And if someone will get two or three loaves out of the crock over there in the corner."

"What are you doing, Mr. Beaver?" exclaimed Simon.

"Packing a load for each of us, dearie," said Mr. Beaver very coolly. "You didn't think we'd set out on a journey with nothing to eat, did you?"

"But we haven't time!" said Simon, buttoning the collar of his coat. "He may be here any minute."

"That's what I say," Mr. Beaver chimed in.

"Get along with you all," said her husband. "Think it over, Mrs. Beaver. He can't be here for quarter of an hour at least."

"But don't we want as big a start as we can possibly get," Peronel said, "if we're to reach the Stone Table before Him?"

"You've got to remember, Mr. Beaver," said Simon. "As soon as He has looked in here and found us gone, He'll be off at top speed."

"True," Mr. Beaver said. "But we can't get there before Him whatever we do, for He'll be on a sledge and we'll be walking."

"Then - have we no hope?" said Simon.

"Now don't you get fussing, there's a dear," Mr. Beaver said, "but just get half a dozen clean handkerchiefs out of the drawer. 'Course, we've got a hope. We can't get there before Him, but we can keep under cover and go by ways He won't expect and perhaps we'll get through."

"That's true enough, Mr. Beaver," his wife said. "But it's time we were out of this."

"And don't you start fussing either, Mrs. Beaver," said her husband. "There. That's better. There's five loads and the smallest for the smallest of us: that's you, my dear," he added, looking at Luke.

"Oh, do please come on," said Luke, almost dancing with impatience.

"Well, I'm nearly ready now," answered Mr. Beaver at last, allowing his wife to help him into his snow-boots. "I suppose the sewing machine's too heavy to bring?"

"Yes. It is," Mrs. Beaver said. "A great deal too heavy. And you don't think you'll be able to use it while we're on the run, I suppose?"

"I can't abide the thought of that warlock fiddling with it," said Mr. Beaver, "and breaking it or stealing it, as likely as not."

"Oh, please, please, please, do hurry!" said the three children.

And so at last they all got outside, and Mrs. Beaver locked the door ("It'll delay Him a bit," she said) and they set off, all carrying their loads over their shoulders.

The snow had stopped, and the moon had come out when they began their journey. They went in single file - first Mrs. Beaver, then Luke, then Peronel, then Simon, and Mr. Beaver last of all. Mrs. Beaver led them across the dam and on to the right bank of the river and then along a very rough sort of path among the trees right down by the river-bank. The sides of the valley, shining in the moonlight, towered up far above them on either hand. "Best keep down here as much as possible," she said. "He'll have to keep to the top, as you couldn't bring a sledge down here."

It would have been a pretty enough scene to look at it through a window from a comfortable armchair; and even as things were, Luke enjoyed it at first. But as they went on walking and walking, and as the sack he was carrying felt heavier and heavier, he began to wonder how he was going to keep up at all. He stopped looking at the dazzling brightness of the frozen river with all its waterfalls of ice and at the white tree-tops and the great moon and the countless stars. He could only watch the little, short, furry legs of Mrs. Beaver going pad-pad-pad-pad through the snow in front of him as if they were never going to stop. Then the moon disappeared, and the snow began to fall once more.

By the time Luke was so tired that he was almost sleep walking, he suddenly found that Mrs. Beaver had turned away from the river-bank to the right and was leading them steeply uphill into the very thickest bushes. Then as he came fully awake, he saw Mrs. Beaver was just vanishing into a little hole in the bank which had been almost hidden under the bushes until they were quite on top of it.

In fact, by the time he realised what was happening, only her short flat tail was showing.

Luke immediately stooped down and crawled in after her. Then he heard noises of scrambling and puffing and panting behind him and in a moment all five of them were inside.

"Wherever is this?" said Peronel's voice, sounding tired in the darkness.

"It's an old hiding-place for beavers in bad times," Mrs. Beaver said, "and a great secret. It's not much of a place but we must get a few hours' sleep."

"If you hadn't all been in such a monstrous fuss when we were starting, I'd have brought some pillows," said Mr. Beaver.

It wasn't nearly such a nice cave as Miss Bonadea's, Luke thought, just a hole in the ground but dry and earthy. It was very small so that when they all lay down they were all a bundle of clothes together, and what with that and being warmed up by their long walk they were really rather snug.

If only the floor of the cave had been a little smoother! Then Mr. Beaver handed round in the dark, a little flask out of which everyone drank something - it made them cough and splutter a little and stung the throat, but it also made them feel deliciously warm after they'd swallowed it, and everyone went straight to sleep.

It seemed to Luke only the next minute (though really it was hours and hours later) when he woke up feeling a little cold and dreadfully stiff and thinking how he would like a hot bath. Then he felt a set of long whiskers tickling his cheek and saw the cold daylight coming in through the mouth of the cave. But immediately after that, he was very wide awake indeed, and so was everyone else. In fact they were all sitting up with their mouths and eyes wide open listening to a sound which was the very sound they'd all been thinking of (and sometimes imagining they heard) during their walk last night. It was a sound of jingling bells.

Mrs. Beaver was out of the cave like a flash the moment she heard it. Luke thought that this was a very silly thing to do. But it was really a very sensible one. Mrs. Beaver knew she could scramble to the top of the bank among bushes and brambles without being seen; and she wanted above all things to see which way the warlock's sledge went. The others all sat in the cave waiting and wondering. They waited nearly five minutes. Then they heard something that frightened them very much. They heard voices.

"Oh," thought Luke, "she's been seen. He's caught her!"

Great was their surprise when a little later, they heard Mrs. Beaver's voice calling to them from just outside the cave. "It's all right! Come out, Mr. Beaver! Come out, Daughters of Eve and Sons of Adam! It isn't Him!"

So Mr. Beaver and the children came bundling out of the cave, all blinking in the daylight, and with earth all over them, and looking very frowsty, unbrushed, uncombed and with sleep in their eyes.

"Come on!" cried Mrs. Beaver, who was almost dancing with delight. "Come and see! This is a nasty knock for the warlock! It looks as if His power is already crumbling."

"What do you mean, Mrs. Beaver?" Peronel panted as they all scrambled up the steep bank of the valley together.

"Didn't I tell you," shouted Mrs. Beaver, "that He'd made it always winter and never Christmas? Didn't I tell you? Well, just come and see!"

Then they were all at the top and did see.

There was a sledge, and there were reindeer with bells on their harness. But they were far bigger than the warlock's reindeer, and they were not white but brown. On the sledge sat a person whom everyone knew the moment they set eyes on her. She was a huge woman, in a bright red robe (bright as holly berries) with a hood fringed with ivory fur, and a head of white hair that fell like a foamy waterfall over her back. In the back of the sleigh were several large burlap sacks, bulging with presents. Peeping up over the front of the sleigh was a small person, dressed in a green tunic with pointed ears.

Everyone knew her because, they had seen pictures of her and heard her talked about even in their world on the other side of the wardrobe door.

Some of the pictures of Mother Christmas in their world made her look only funny and jolly. But now that the children actually stood looking at her, they didn't find it quite like that. She was so big, and so glad, and so real, that they all became quite still. They felt very happy, but also solemn.

"I've come at last," said she. "He has kept me out for a long time, but I have got in at last. Aslaine is on the move. The warlock's magic is weakening."

And Luke felt a deep shiver of gladness running through him.

"And now," Mother Christmas said, "for your presents. There is a new and far better sewing machine for you, Mr. Beaver. I will drop it in your house as I pass."

"If you please, marm," said Mr. Beaver, making a curtsey. "It's locked up."

"Locks and bolts make no difference to me," Mother Christmas said. "And as for you, Mrs. Beaver, when you get home you will find your dam finished and mended and all the leaks stopped, and a new sluicegate fitted."

Mrs. Beaver was so pleased that she opened her mouth very wide and then found she couldn't say anything at all.

"Peronel, Eve's Daughter," Mother Christmas said.

"Here, marm," Peronel said.

"These are your presents," was the answer, "and they are tools not toys. The time to use them is perhaps near at hand. Bear them well." With these words she took a shield and a sword from the elf who had just pulled them out of a sack, and handed them to Peronel.

The shield was the colour of silver and across it there ramped a yellow lioness, as bright as the sun at midday. The hilt of the sword was of gold and it had a sheath and a sword belt and everything it needed, and it was just the right size and weight for Peronel to use. Peronel was silent and solemn as she received these gifts, for she felt they were a very serious kind of present.

"Simon, Adam's Son," said Mother Christmas. "These are for you." The elf passed a bow and a leather quiver full of arrows and a little bronze horn to her and she handed them to Simon. "You must use the bow only in great need," she said, "for I do not mean you to fight in the battle. It does not easily miss. And when you put this horn to your lips; and blow it, then, wherever you are, help of some kind will come to you."

Last of all she said, "Luke, Adam's Son," and Luke came forward. From the same sack, the elf pulled out a little bottle of what looked like glass (but people said afterwards that it was made of diamond) and a small steel dagger and gave them to Mother Christmas. She placed them in Luke's hands. "In this bottle," she said, "there is cordial made of the juice of one of the fire flowers that grow in the mountains of the sun. If you or any of your friends is hurt, a few drops of this restore them. And the dagger is to defend yourself at great need. For you also are not to be in battle."

"Why, marm?" asked Luke. "I think - I don't know but I think I could be brave enough."

"That is not the point," she said. "But battles are ugly when men fight. And now," here she suddenly looked less grave, "here is something for you all!"

She brought out from the big bag at her back, a large tray containing blue and white crockery; five cups and saucers, a bowl of lump sugar, a jug of milk, and a great big teapot all steaming and piping hot.

Then she cried out "Merry Christmas! Long live the true queens and kings!" and cracked her whip. She and the reindeer and the sledge and all were out of sight before anyone realised that they had started.

Peronel had just drawn her sword out of its sheath and was showing it to Mrs. Beaver, when Mr. Beaver said, "Now then, now then! Don't stand talking there till the tea's got cold. Just like women. Come and help to carry the tray down and we'll have breakfast. What a mercy I thought of bringing the bread-knife."

So down the steep bank they went and back to the cave, and managed not to spill a drop, and Mrs. Beaver cut some of the bread and ham into sandwiches and Mr. Beaver poured out the tea and everyone enjoyed themselves. But as soon as they had finished eating, Mrs. Beaver said, "Time to be moving on now."


	11. Chapter 11 Aslaine is Nearer

Chapter Eleven - Aslaine Is Nearer

Edwina meanwhile had been having a most disappointing time. When the dwarf had gone to get the sledge ready, she expected that the warlock would start being nice to her, as he had been at their last meeting. But he said nothing at all. And when at last Edwina plucked up her courage to say, "Please, your Majesty, could I have some chocolates? You - you - said -"

He answered, "Silence, fool!" Then he appeared to change his mind and said, as if to himself, "And yet it will not do to have the brat fainting on the way," and once more clapped his hands.

Another dwarf appeared, who had red hair.

"Bring the human creature food and drink," he said.

The dwarf went away and presently returned bringing a fancy cardboard box. She grinned in a repulsive manner as she handed the box to Edwina and said, "Chocolates for the little princess. Ha! Ha! Ha!"

Edwina was delighted to see it. But when she opened the box, slugs and snails writhed in front of her. She flung it away with an exclamation of horror. The dwarf howled with laughter and the warlock smiled.

The box turned into an iron plate and the slugs and snails turned into a hunk of tired looking cheese lying on the floor beside the box.

"Take it away," said Edwina sulkily. "I don't want old cheese."

But the warlock suddenly turned on her with such a terrible expression on his face that she apologised and began to nibble at the cheese, though, it was so hard and mouldy, she could hardly get it down.

"You may be glad enough of it before you taste food again," said the warlock.

The dwarf went out and came back with an iron bowl with some water in it that she set on the ground beside Edwina. While she was still chewing away, the first dwarf came back and announced that the sledge was ready.

The White Warlock rose and went out, ordering Edwina to go with him. The snow was again falling as they came into the courtyard, but he took no notice of that and made Edwina sit beside him on the sledge. But before they drove off, he called Morgrim and she came bounding like an enormous dog to the side of the sledge.

"Take with you the swiftest of your wolves and go at once to the house of the beavers," said the warlock, "and kill whatever you find there. If they are already gone, then make all speed to the Stone Table, but do not be seen. Wait for me there in hiding. I meanwhile must go many miles to the west before I find a place where I can drive across the river. You may overtake these humans before they reach the Stone Table. You will know what to do if you find them!"

"I hear and obey, O King," growled the wolf, and immediately she shot away into the snow and darkness, as quickly as a horse can gallop. In a few minutes she had called another wolf and was with her down on the dam sniffing at the beavers' house. But of course they found it empty. It would have been a dreadful thing for the beavers and the children if the night had remained fine, for the wolves would then have been able to follow their trail - and ten to one would have overtaken them before they had got to the cave. But now that the snow had begun again, the scent was cold and even the footprints were covered up.

Meanwhile the dwarf whipped up the reindeer, and the warlock and Edwina drove out under the archway and on and away into the darkness and the cold. This was a terrible journey for Edwina, who had no coat. Before they had been going quarter of an hour, all the front of her was covered with snow. She soon stopped trying to shake it off because, as quickly as she did that, a new lot gathered, and she was so tired. Soon she was wet to the skin. And oh, how miserable she was! It didn't look now as if the warlock intended to make her a queen. All the things she had said to make herself believe that he was good and kind and that his side was really the right side sounded silly to her now. She would have given anything to meet the others at this moment - even Peronel! The only way to comfort herself now was to try to believe that the whole thing was a nightmare and that she might wake up at any moment. And as they went on, hour after hour, it did come to seem like a nightmare.

The snow had stopped, and morning had come, and they were racing along in the daylight. Still they went on and on, with no sound but the everlasting swish of the snow and the creaking of the reindeer's harness. Then abruptly, the warlock said, "What have we here? Stop!" and they did.

How Edwina hoped he was going to say something about breakfast! Dinner at the beavers' house seemed a very long time ago now. But the warlock had stopped for quite a different reason. A little way off at the foot of a tree sat the remains of a feast on a table with stools around it. There had been several animals gathered around it but at the sound of the sledge, they had nearly all (very sensibly in Edwina's opinion) scampered away. She couldn't quite see what they had been eating, but it smelled lovely. There seemed to be decorations of holly and she thought she saw something like a plum pudding. At the moment when the sledge stopped, there was only an old fox left with her back to the sleigh, holding a glass in its right paw. Edwina guessed she must be deaf.

"What is the meaning of this?" shouted the warlock king as he stepped down from the sledge.

The old fox turned around slowly, and a look of surprise came on her face as she blinked through her little round glasses.

"Speak, vermin!" he said again. "Or do you want my dwarf to find you a tongue with her whip? What is the meaning of all this gluttony, this waste, this self-indulgence? Where did you get all these things?"

"Please, your Majesty," said the fox, "we were given them by Mother Christmas. And if I might make so bold as to drink your Majesty's very good health —" She motioned with her glass not towards the warlock but toward Edwina.

Before she could say any more, Edwina saw the warlock bite his lips so that a drop of blood appeared on his white cheek. Then he raised his wand.

"Oh, don't, don't, please don't," shouted Edwina, but even while she was shouting, he had waved his wand and instantly there was a statue of a fox with a glass in her paw seated at a stone table on which there were stone plates and a stone plum pudding.

"As for you," said the warlock, giving Edwina a stunning blow on the face as he re-mounted the sledge, "let that teach you to ask favour for spies and traitors. Drive on!"

And Edwina, despite the burning pain in her cheek, for the first time in this story felt sorry for someone besides herself. It seemed so pitiful to think of those little stone figure sitting there all the silent days and all the dark nights, year after year, till the moss grew on it and at last even her face crumbled away.

Now they were steadily racing on again. Soon Edwina noticed that the snow, which splashed against them as they rushed through it, was much wetter than it had been all last night. At the same time she noticed that she was feeling much less cold. It was also becoming foggy. In fact every minute it grew foggier and warmer. And the sledge was not running nearly as well as it had before. At first, she thought this was because the reindeer were tired, but soon she realised that it couldn't be the true reason. The sledge jerked and skidded and kept on jolting as if it had struck against stones. And however the dwarf whipped the poor huffing reindeer, the sledge slowed down. There also seemed to be a strange noise all round them, but the noise of their driving and jolting and the dwarf's shouting at the reindeer prevented Edwina from hearing what it was, until suddenly the sledge stuck so fast that it wouldn't go on at all.

With the sound of the sledge stopped, Edwina could at last listen to the other noise properly. A strange, sweet, murmuring noise - and yet not so strange, for she'd heard it before - if only she could remember where! Then all at once she did remember. It was the noise of running water. All round them though out of sight, there were streams, gurgling, bubbling, splashing and even (in the distance) roaring. And her heart gave a great leap (though she hardly knew why) when she realised that the frost was over. Much nearer there was a drip-drip-drip from the branches of all the trees. As she looked at one tree, she saw a great load of snow slide off it and land with a whoosh on the ground. For the first time since she had entered Nernya, she saw the dark green of a fir tree. But she hadn't time to listen or watch any longer, for the warlock rasped, "Don't sit there staring, fool! Get out and help."

Of course Edwina had to obey. She stepped down into the snow - but it was really only slush by now - and began helping the dwarf to get the sledge out of the muddy hole it had got into. They got it out in the end, and by whipping the reindeer savagely, the dwarf managed to get the sledge on the move again, and they drove a little further. Now the snow was melting in earnest and patches of green grass were appearing in every direction. After looking at a world of snow for as long as Edwina had, it was a relief to see those green patches after the endless white. Then the sledge stopped again.

"It's no good, your Majesty," said the dwarf. "We can't sledge in this thaw."

"Then we needs must walk," said the warlock.

"We shall never overtake them walking," growled the dwarf. "Not with the start they've got."

"Are you my advisor or my slave?" the warlock asked. "Do as you're told. Tie the hands of the human creature behind it and keep hold of the end of the rope. And take your whip. Cut the harness of the reindeer; they'll find their own way home."

The dwarf obeyed, and in a few minutes, Edwina found herself being forced to walk as fast as she could with her hands tied behind her. She kept on slipping in the slush and mud and wet grass, and every time she slipped the dwarf cursed her and sometimes gave her a flick with the whip. That hurt. The warlock walked in front of the dwarf and kept on saying, "Faster! Faster! We must get to the Stone Table before it is too late."

Every moment the patches of green grew bigger and the patches of snow smaller. Every moment more and more trees shook off their robes of snow. Soon, wherever Edwina looked, she saw the dark green of firs or the black prickly branches of bare oaks, beeches and elms. Then the mist turned from white to gold and presently cleared away altogether. Shafts of delicious sunlight struck down on to the forest floor and overhead she could see a blue sky between the tree tops.

Wonders continued to happen. Coming suddenly around a corner into a glade of silver birch trees, Edwina saw the ground carpeted with little yellow flowers - celandines. The noise of water grew louder. Presently they actually crossed a gurgling stream. Beyond it they found snowdrops growing in thick clusters.

"Mind your own business!" snapped the dwarf when she saw Edwina had turned her head to look at them; and she gave the rope a vicious jerk.

But of course this didn't prevent Edwina from seeing. Only five minutes later she noticed a dozen crocuses growing round the foot of an old tree - gold and purple and white. Then came a sound even more heartwarming than the sound of the water. Close beside the path they were following, a small brown bird suddenly chirped from the branch of a tree. It was answered by the chuckle of another bird a little further off. And then, as if that had been a signal, there was chattering and chirruping in every direction, followed by a moment of full song. Within five minutes the whole wood rang with birds' music. Wherever Edwina's gaze landed, she saw birds alighting on branches, or sailing overhead or chasing one another or having their little quarrels or tidying up their feathers with their beaks.

"Faster! Faster!" roared the warlock.

The sky became bluer and bluer, and white clouds hurried across it from time to time. In the wide glades there were yellow primroses. A light breeze sprang up which scattered cool drops of moisture from the swaying branches and carried delicious scents against the faces of the travellers. The trees put on their spring garb. The larches and birches became covered with green, the laburnums with gold. Soon the beech trees had put forth their delicate, transparent leaves. As they walked under them, the light turned green. A fat bee buzzed across their path.

"This is no thaw," said the dwarf, suddenly halting. "This is Spring. What are we to do? Your Majesty's winter has been destroyed, I tell you! This is Aslaine's doing."

"If either of you mention that name again," said the warlock, "she shall be killed immediately."


	12. Chapter 12 Peronel's First Battle

Chapter Twelve - Peronel's First Battle

While the dwarf and the White Witch were saying this, miles away the beavers and the children were walking on hour after hour into what seemed a delicious dream. Long ago they had left the coats behind them. And by now they had even stopped saying to one another, "Look! there's a kingfisher," or "I say, bluebells!" or "What was that lovely smell?" or "Just listen to that woodpecker!"

They walked on in silence drinking it all in, passing through patches of warm sunlight into cool, green thickets and out again into wide mossy glades where tall oaks raised the leafy roof far overhead, and then into dense masses of flowering currant and among hawthorn bushes where the sweet smell was almost overpowering.

They had been just as surprised as Edwina when they saw the winter vanishing and the whole wood passing in a few hours or so from January to May. They hadn't even known for certain (as the warlock did) that this was what would happen when Aslaine came to Nernya. But they all knew that it was his spells which had produced the endless winter; and therefore they all knew when this magic spring began that something had gone wrong, and badly wrong, with the warlock's schemes. And after the thaw had been going on for some time they all realized that the warlock would no longer be able to use his sledge. After that they didn't hurry so much and they allowed themselves more rests and longer ones. They were pretty tired by now, slow and feeling very dreamy and quiet inside. Simon had a slight blister on one heel.

They had left the course of the big river some time ago; for one had to turn a little to the right (that meant a little to the south) to reach the place of the Stone Table. Even if this had not been their way they couldn't have kept to the river valley once the thaw began, for with all that melting snow the river was soon in flood - a wonderful, roaring, thundering yellow flood - and their path would have been under water.

And now the sun got low and the light got redder and the shadows got longer and the flowers began to close.

"Not long now," said Mrs. Beaver, and began leading them uphill across some very deep, green, springy moss (it felt nice under their tired feet) in a place where only tall trees grew, very wide apart. The climb, coming at the end of the long day, made them all pant and blow. And just as Luke was wondering whether he could really get to the top without another long rest, suddenly they were at the top, looking down.

They were on a green open space from which they could look down on the forest spreading as far as they could see in every direction - except right ahead. There, far to the East, was something sparkling and moving. "By George!" whispered Peronel to Simon, "the sea!"

In the very middle of this open hill-top was the Stone Table. It was a great grim slab of grey stone supported on four upright stones. It looked very old; and it was cut all over with strange runes that were the letters of an unknown language. They gave you a curious feeling when you looked at them. The next thing they saw was a pavilion pitched on one side of the open place. A wonderful pavilion it was - and especially now when the light of the setting sun fell upon it - with sides of what looked like yellow silk and cords of crimson and tent-pegs of ivory; and high above it on a pole a banner which bore a red rampant lioness fluttering in the breeze which was blowing in their faces from the far-off sea. While they were looking at this they heard a sound of music on their right; and turning in that direction they saw what they had come to see.

Aslaine stood in the centre of a crowd of creatures who had grouped themselves round her in the shape of a half-moon. There were tree-women there and well-women (Dryads and Naiads as they used to be called in our world) who had stringed instruments; it was they who had made the music. There were four great centaurs. The horse part of them was like huge English farm horses, and the woman part was like stern but beautiful giants. There was also a unicorn, and a cow with the head of a woman, and a pelican, and an eagle, and a great dog. And next to Aslaine stood two panthers of whom one carried her crown and the other her standard.

But as for Aslaine herself, the beavers and the children didn't know what to do or say when they saw her. People who have not been in Nernya sometimes think that a thing cannot be good and terrible at the same time. If the children had ever thought so, they were cured of it now. For when they tried to look at Aslaine's face they just caught a glimpse of the golden fur and the great, royal, solemn, overwhelming eyes; and then they found they couldn't look at her and went all trembly.

"Go on," whispered Mrs. Beaver.

"No," whispered Peronel, "you first."

"No, Daughters of Eve before animals," whispered Mrs. Beaver back again.

"Simon," whispered Peronel, "What about you? Gentlemen first."

"No, you're the eldest," whispered Simon. And of course the longer they went on doing this the more awkward they felt. Then at last Peronel realized that it was up to her. She drew her sword and raised it to the salute and hastily saying to the others, "Come on. Pull yourselves together," she advanced to the lioness and said, "We have come - Aslaine."

"Welcome, Peronel, Daughter of Eve," said Aslaine. "Welcome, Simon and Luke, Son of Adam. Welcome She-Beaver and He-Beaver."

Her voice was deep and rich and somehow took the fidgets out of them. They now felt glad and quiet and it didn't seem awkward to them to stand and say nothing.

"But where is the fourth?" asked Aslaine.

"She has tried to betray them and joined the White Warlock, O Aslaine," said Mrs. Beaver. And then something made Peronel say, "That was partly my fault, Aslaine. I was angry with her and I think that helped her to go wrong."

And Aslaine said nothing either to excuse Peronel or to blame her but merely stood looking at her with her great unchanging eyes. And it seemed to all of them that there was nothing to be said.

"Please - Aslaine," said Luke, "can anything be done to save Edwina?"

"All shall be done," said Aslaine. "But it may be harder than you think."

And then she was silent again for some time. Up to that moment Luke had been thinking how royal and strong and peaceful her face looked; now it suddenly came into his head that she looked sad as well. But next minute that expression was quite gone. The lioness shook her head and clapped her paws together ("Terrible paws," thought Luke, "if she didn't know how to velvet them!") and said, "Meanwhile, let the feast be prepared. Gentlemen, take these Sons of Adam, to the pavilion and minister to them."

When the boys had gone Aslaine laid her paw - and though it was velveted it was very heavy - on Peronel's shoulder and said, "Come, Daughter of Eve, and I will show you a far-off sight of the castle where you are to be queen."

And Peronel with her sword still drawn in her hand, went with the lioness to the eastern edge of the hilltop. There a beautiful sight met their eyes. The sun was setting behind their backs. That meant that the whole country below them lay in the evening light - forest and hills and valleys and, winding away like a silver serpent, the lower part of the great river. And beyond all this, miles away, was the sea, and beyond the sea the sky, full of rose coloured clouds. But just where the land of Nernya met the sea - in fact, at the mouth of the great river - there was something on a little hill, shining. It was the sunlight reflected from all the windows of a great castle, which looked towards Peronel and the sunset; but to Peronel it looked like a great star resting on the seashore.

"That, O Woman," said Aslaine, "is Cair Paravel of the four thrones, in one of which you must sit as queen. I show it to you because you are the first-born and you will be High Queen over all the rest."

And once more Peronel said nothing, for at that moment a strange noise woke the silence suddenly. It was like a bugle, but richer.

"It is your sister's horn," said Aslaine to Peronel in a low voice; so low as to be almost a purr, if it is not disrespectful to think of a lioness purring.

For a moment Peronel did not understand. Then, when he saw all the other creatures start forward and heard Aslaine say with a wave of her paw, "Back! Let the princess win her spurs," she did understand, and set off running as hard as she could to the pavilion. And there she saw a dreadful sight.

The naiads and dryads were scattering in every direction. Luke was running towards her as fast as his short legs would carry him and his face was as white as paper. Then she saw Simon make a dash for a tree, and swing himself up, followed by a huge grey beast. At first Peronel thought it was a bear. Then she saw that it looked like an Alsatian, though it was far too big to be a dog. Then she realized that it was a wolf - a wolf standing on its hind legs, with its front paws against the tree-trunk, snapping and snarling. All the hair on its back stood up on end. Simon had not been able to get higher than the second big branch. One of his legs hung down so that his foot was only an inch or two above the snapping teeth. He was still clutching the horn tightly. Peronel wondered why he did not get higher or at least take a better grip; then she realised that he was just about to faint and that if he fainted, he would fall off.

Peronel did not feel very brave; indeed, she felt she was going to be sick. But that made no difference to what she had to do. She rushed straight up to the monster and aimed a slash of her sword at its side. That stroke never reached the wolf. Quick as lightning it turned round, its eyes flaming, and its mouth wide open in a howl of anger. If it had not been so angry that it simply had to howl, it would have got her by the throat at once. As it was - though all this happened too quickly for Peronel to think at all - she had just time to duck down and plunge her sword, as hard as she could, between the brute's forelegs into its heart. Then came a horrible, confused moment like something in a nightmare. She was tugging and pulling and the wolf seemed neither alive nor dead, and its bared teeth knocked against her forehead, and everything was blood and heat and hair. A moment later she found that the monster lay dead and she had drawn her sword out of it and was straightening her back and rubbing the sweat off her face and out of her eyes.

She felt tired all over.

Then, after a bit, Simon came down the tree, still holding the horn. He and Peronel felt pretty shaky when they met and I won't say there wasn't kissing and crying on both sides.

"Quick! Quick!" shouted the voice of Aslaine. "Centaurs! Eagles! I see another wolf in the thickets. There - behind you. She has just darted away. After her, all of you. She will be going to her master. Now is your chance to find the warlock and rescue the fourth Daughter of Eve."

And instantly with a thunder of hoofs and beating of wings, a dozen or so of the swiftest creatures disappeared into the gathering darkness.

Peronel, still out of breath, turned and saw Aslaine close at hand.

"You have forgotten to clean your sword," said Aslaine.

It was true. Peronel blushed when she looked at the bright blade and saw it all smeared with the wolf's hair and blood. She stooped down and wiped it quite clean on the grass, and then wiped it quite dry on her trousers.

"Hand it to me and kneel, Daughter of Eve," said Aslaine. And when Peronel had done so she struck her with the flat of the blade and said, "Rise up, Sir Peronel Wolf's-Bane. And, whatever happens, never forget to wipe your sword."

When Edwina had been made to walk far further than she had ever known that anybody could walk, the warlock at last halted in a dark valley all overshadowed with fir trees and yew trees. Edwina simply sank down and lay on her face doing nothing at all and not even caring what was going to happen next provided they would let her lie still. She was too tired even to notice how hungry and thirsty she was. The warlock and the dwarf were talking close beside her in low tones.

"No," said the dwarf, "it is no use now, O King. They must have reached the Stone Table by now."

"Perhaps the wolf will smell us out and bring us news," said the warlock.

"It cannot be good news if she does," said the dwarf.

"Four thrones in Cair Paravel," said the warlock. "How if only three were filled? That would not fulfil the prophecy."

"What difference would that make now that She is here?" said the dwarf. She did not dare, even now, to mention the name of Aslaine to her master.

"She may not stay long. And then - we would fall upon the three at Cair."

"Yet it might be better," said the dwarf, "to keep this one" (here she kicked Edwina) "for bargaining with."


	13. Chapter 13 Profound Magic

Chapter Thirteen - Profound Magic

"Yes! and have her rescued," said the warlock scornfully, curling his lip

"Then," said the dwarf, "we had better do what we have to do at once."

"I would like to have it done on the Stone Table itself," said the warlock. "That is the proper place. That is where it has always been done before."

"It will be a long time now before the Stone Table can again be put to its proper use," said the dwarf.

"True," said the warlock; and then, "Well, I will begin."

At that moment with a rush and a snarl, a wolf rushed up to them.

"I have seen them. They are all at the Stone Table, with Her. They have killed my captain, Morgrime. I was hidden in the thickets and saw it all. One of the Daughters of Eve killed her. Fly!"

"No," said the warlock and struck the wolf who cowered back. "There need be no flying. Go quickly. Summon all our people to meet me here as speedily as they can. Call out the giants and the werewolves and the harpies who are on our side. Call the ghouls, and the banshees, the ogres and the black dogs. Call the udug, the hags, the cihuateteo and the Toadstool People. We will fight. Have I not still my wand? Will not their ranks turn into stone even as they come on? Be off quickly, I have a little thing to finish here while you are away."

The great brute bowed its head, turned, and galloped away.

"Now!" he said, "we have no table - let me see. We had better put it against the trunk of a tree."

Edwina found herself being roughly forced to her feet. Then the dwarf set her with her back against a tree and bound her fast. He saw the warlock take off his outer mantle. His arms were bare underneath it and terribly white. Because they were so very white she could see them, but she could not see much else, it was so dark in this valley under the dark trees.

"Prepare the victim,", said the warlock.

And the dwarf undid Edwina's collar and folded back her shirt at the neck. Then she took Edwina's hair and pulled her head back so that she had to raise her chin. After that Edwina heard a strange noise - whizz whizz - whizz. For a moment she couldn't think what it was. Then she realised. It was the sound of a knife being sharpened.

At that very moment she heard loud shouts from every direction - a drumming of hoofs and a beating of wings - a scream from the warlock - confusion all round him. And then she found she was being untied. Strong arms were round her and he heard big, kind voices saying things like, "Let her lie down - give her some wine - drink this - steady now - you'll be all right in a minute."

Then she heard the voices of people who were not talking to her but to one another. And they were saying things like, "Who's got the warlock?"

"I thought you had him."

"I didn't see him after I knocked the knife out of his hand - I was after the dwarf - do you mean to say he's escaped?"

"I thought you were going to catch the warlock - what's that? Oh, sorry, it's only an old stump!"

But just at this point Edwina fainted.

Presently the centaurs and unicorns and eagles (they were of course the rescue party which Aslaine had sent in the last chapter) all set off to go back to the Stone Table, carrying Edwina with them.

It was perfectly still in the dark valley and presently the moon grew bright. The moonlight shone on an old tree-stump and on a fair-sized boulder. There was something strange about both the stump and the boulder. The stump looked like a little fat woman and the boulder like a larger man crouching on the ground. Then the stump walked across to the boulder and the boulder sat up and began talking to the stump. In reality, the stump and the boulder were the dwarf and the warlock. For it was part of his magic that he could make things look like what they aren't, and he had the presence of mind to do so at the very moment when the knife was knocked out of his hand. He had kept hold of his wand, so it had been kept safe, too.

When the other children woke up next morning (they had been sleeping on piles of cushions in the pavilion) the first thing they heard - from Mrs. Beaver - was that their sister had been rescued and brought into camp late last night; and was at that moment with Aslaine. As soon as they had breakfasted on bread and fruit, they all went out, and there they saw Aslaine and Edwina walking together in the dewy grass, apart from the rest of the court.

"Always remember, Daughter of Eve," Aslaine said, "that if you have committed acts that you are ashamed of, if you are truly sorry and make amends and strive to be a better person in the future then your misdeeds will be forgiven and forgotten." It was a conversation which Edwina always remembered.

As the others drew nearer Aslaine turned to meet them, bringing Edwina with her.

"Here is your sister," she said, "and - there is no need to talk to her about what is past."

Edwina shook hands with each of the others and said to each of them in turn, "I'm really sorry," and everyone said, "That's all right." And then everyone wanted very hard to say something which would make it quite clear that they were all friends with her again -something ordinary and natural, and of course no one could think of anything in the world to say. But before they had time to feel really awkward, one of the panthers approached Aslaine and said, "Madam, there is a messenger from the enemy who craves audience."

"Let her approach," said Aslaine.

The panther went away and soon returned leading the warlock's dwarf.

"What is your message, Daughter of Earth?" asked Aslaine.

"The King of Narnia and Emperor of the Lone Islands desires a safe conduct to come and speak with you," said the dwarf, "on a matter which is as much to your advantage as to his."

"King of Narnia, indeed!" cried Mrs. Beaver. "Of all the cheek —"

"Peace, Beaver," Aslaine said. "All names will soon be restored to their proper owners. In the meantime we will not dispute about them. Tell your master, Daughter of Earth, that I grant him safe conduct on condition that he leaves his wand behind him at that great oak."

This was agreed to and two panthers went back with the dwarf to see that the conditions were properly carried out.

"But supposing he turns the two panthers into stone?" whispered Luke to Peronel.

The same idea had occurred to the panthers themselves. They walked off, their fur standing up on their backs and their tails straight up, like a cat's when it sees a strange dog.

"It'll be all right," Peronel whispered in reply. "She wouldn't send them if it weren't."

A few minutes later the warlock himself walked out on to the top of the hill and came straight across and stood before Aslaine. The three children who had not seen him before, felt shudders running down their backs at the sight of his white face; and there were low growls among all the animals present. Though it was bright sunshine everyone felt suddenly cold. The only two people present who seemed to be quite at their ease were Aslaine and the warlock himself. It was the oddest thing to see those two faces - the golden face and the dead-white face so close together. Not that the warlock looked Aslaine exactly in her eyes; Mrs. Beaver particularly noticed this.

"You have a traitor there, Aslaine," said the warlock. Of course, everyone present knew that he meant Edwina. But Edwina had got past thinking about herself after all she'd been through and after the talk she'd had that morning. She just went on looking at Aslaine. It didn't seem to matter what the warlock said.

"Well," Aslaine said. "Her offence was not against you."

"Have you forgotten the Profound Magic?" asked the warlock.

"Let us say I have forgotten it," Aslaine answered gravely. "Tell us of this Profound Magic."

"Tell you?" said the warlock, his voice growing suddenly shriller. "Tell you what is written on that very Table of Stone which stands beside us? Tell you what is written in letters deep as a spear is long, on the firestones on the Secret Mound? Tell you what is engraved on the sceptre of the Empress-beyond-the-Sea? You at least know the Profound Magic which the Empress put into Nernya at the very beginning. You know that every traitor belongs to me as my lawful prey and that for every treachery I have a right to a kill."

"Oh," said Mrs. Beaver. "So that's how you came to imagine yourself a king, because you were the Empress's hangman. I see."

"Peace, Beaver," Aslaine said, with a very low growl.

"And so," continued the warlock, "that human creature is my property. Her life is forfeit to me. Her blood is mine."

"Come and take it then," said the cow with the woman's head in a great bellowing voice.

"Fool," said the warlock with a savage smile that was almost a snarl, "do you really think your mistress can rob me of my rights by mere force? She knows the Profound Magic better than that. She knows that unless I have blood as the law dictates, all Nernya will be overturned and perish in fire and water."

"It is very true," Aslaine said, "I do not deny it."

"Oh, Aslaine!" whispered Simon in the lion's ear, "can't we - I mean, you won't, will you? Can't we do something about the Profound Magic? Isn't there something you can work against it?"

"Work against the Empress's Magic?" Aslaine said, turning to him with something like a frown on her face. And nobody ever made that suggestion to her again.

Edwina was on the other side of Aslaine, looking all the time at Aslaine's face. She was half choking and wondered if she ought to say something; but a moment later she felt that she was not expected to do anything except to wait and do what she was told.

"Fall back, all of you," Aslaine said, "and I will talk to the warlock alone."

They all obeyed. It was a terrible time this, waiting and wondering while the lioness and the warlock talked earnestly together in low voices.

Luke said, "Oh, Edwina!" and began to cry.

Peronel stood with her back to the others looking out at the distant sea. The beavers stood holding each other's paws with their heads bowed. The centaurs and minotaurs stamped uneasily with their hoofs. But everyone became perfectly still in the end, so that you noticed even small sounds like a bumble-bee flying past, or the chirruping birds in the forest down below them, or the wind rustling the leaves. And still the talk between Aslaine and the White Warlock went on.

At last they heard Aslaine's voice, "You can all come back," he said. "I have settled the matter. He has renounced the claim on your sister's blood."

And all over the hill there was a noise as if everyone had been holding their breath and had now begun breathing again, and then murmurs began.

The warlock was just turning away with a look of fierce joy on his face when he stopped and said, "But how do I know this promise will be kept?"

"Haa-a-arrh!" roared Aslaine. Her great mouth opened wider and wider and the roar grew louder and louder, and the warlock, after staring for a moment with his lips now bloodless and wide apart, picked up his robe and fairly ran for his life.


	14. Ch 14 The Triumph of the Warlock

Chapter Fourteen - The Triumph Of The Warlock

As soon as the warlock had gone, Aslaine said, "We must move from this place at once, it will be wanted for other purposes. We shall camp tonight at the Fords of Baroom.

Of course everyone was dying to ask her how she had arranged matters with the warlock; but her face was stern and everyone's ears were still ringing with the sound of her roar and so nobody dared.

After a meal of bread, cheese and fruit, (the carnivores made other arrangements) which was taken in the open air on the hill-top (for the strong sun had dried the grass by now), they were busy for a while taking the pavilion down and packing things up.

Before two o'clock they were on the march and set off in a northeasterly direction, walking at an easy pace for they had not far to go.

During the first part of the journey Aslaine explained to Peronel her plan of campaign. "As soon as he has finished his business in these parts," he said, "the warlock and his army will almost certainly fall back to his palace and prepare for a siege. You may or may not be able to cut him off and prevent him from reaching it." She then went on to outline two plans of battle - one for fighting the warlock and his people in the wood and another for assaulting his castle. And all the time she was advising Peronel how to conduct the operations, saying things like, "You must put your unicorns in such and such a place" or "You must post scouts to see that she doesn't do so-and-so —"

Till at last Peronel asked, "But won't you be there yourself, Aslaine?"

"I can give you no promise of that," answered the lioness. And she continued giving Peronel her instructions.

For the last part of the journey it was Simon and Luke who saw most of her. She hardly spoke and seemed to be sad to them.

It was still afternoon when they came down to a place where the river valley had widened out and the river was broad and shallow. This was the Fords of Baroom and Aslaine gave orders to halt on this side of the water. But Peronel asked, "Wouldn't it be better to camp on the far side - for fear he should try a night attack or anything?"

Aslaine, who seemed to have been thinking about something else, roused herself with a shake of her head and said, "Eh? What's that?"

Peronel repeated his question.

"No," Aslaine said in a dull voice, as if it didn't matter. "No. He will not make an attack tonight." And then she sighed deeply. But presently she added, "All the same it was well thought of. That is how a soldier ought to think. But not on this occasion." So they pitched their camp.

Aslaine's mood affected everyone that evening. Peronel was feeling worried at the idea of fighting the battle on her own; the news that Aslaine might not be there had come as a great shock to her. Supper that evening was a quiet meal. Everyone felt how different it had been last night or even that morning. It was as if the good times, having just begun, were already drawing to their end.

This feeling affected Simon so much that he couldn't get to sleep when he went to bed. And after he had lain counting sheep and turning over and over, he heard Luke give a long sigh and turn over just beside him in the darkness.

"Can't you get to sleep either?" Simon asked.

"No," said Luke. "I thought you were asleep. I say, Simon!"

"What?"

"I've a most horrible feeling."

"Have you? Because, as a matter of fact, so have I."

"Something about Aslaine," said Luke. "Either some terrible thing is going to happen to her, or something terrible that she's going to do."

"There's been something wrong with her all afternoon," said Simon. "Luke! What did she say about not being with us at the battle? You don't think she could be stealing away and leaving us tonight, do you?"

"Where is she now?" asked Luke. "Is she here in the pavilion?"

"I don't think so."

"Simon! Let's go outside and have a look round. We might see her."

"All right. Let's," said Simon; "we might just as well be doing that as lying awake here."

Very quietly the two boys groped their way among the other sleepers and crept out of the tent.

The moonlight was bright and everything was quite still except for the noise of the river bubbling over the stones. Then Simon suddenly caught Luke's arm and said, "Look!" On the far side of the camping ground, just where the trees began, they saw the lioness slowly walking away from them into the wood. Without a word they both followed her.

She led them up the steep slope out of the river valley and then slightly to the right - apparently by the very same route which they had used that afternoon in coming from the Hill of the Stone Table. On and on she led them, into deep shadows and out into pale moonlight, getting their feet wet with the heavy dew. She looked different from the Aslaine they knew. Her tail and her head hung low and she walked slowly as if she were very, very tired. Then, when they were crossing a wide-open place where there were no shadows for them to hide in, she stopped and looked round. It was no good trying to run away so they came towards her. When they were closer, she said, "Oh, boys, boys, why are you following me?"

"We couldn't sleep," said Luke - and then felt sure that he need say no more and that Aslaine understood.

"Please, may we come with you - wherever you're going?" asked Simon.

"Well -" Aslaine said and thought it over. Then she said, "I should be glad of company tonight. Yes, you may come, if you will promise to stop when I tell you, and after that leave me to go on alone."

"Oh, thank you. And we will," said the two boys.

Forward they went again and one of the boys walked on each side of the lioness. But how slowly she walked! And her great, royal head drooped so that her nose nearly touched the grass. Presently she stumbled and gave a low groan.

"Aslaine! Dear Aslaine!" said Luke, "what's wrong? Can't you tell us?"

"Are you ill, Aslaine dear?" asked Simon.

"No," Aslaine said, "but I am sad and lonely. Lay your hands on my neck so that I can feel you are there and let us walk like that."

And so the boys did what they would never have dared to do without her permission, but what they had longed to do ever since they first saw her, placed their cold hands on her beautiful, soft fur and stroked it while walking with her. Presently they saw that they were going with her up the slope of the hill on which the Stone Table stood. They went up at the side where the trees came furthest up, and when they got to the last tree (it was one that had some bushes about it) Aslaine stopped and said, "Sons of Adam. Here you must stop. And whatever happens, do not try to help me and keep yourselves safe. Farewell."

And both the boys cried bitterly at her disturbing words and clung to the lioness and kissed her paws and her head and her nose and her great, sad eyes. Then she turned from them and walked out on to the top of the hill. Luke and Simon, crouched in the bushes, looked after her, and this is what they saw.

A great crowd of people were standing all around the Stone Table and though the moon was shining, many of them carried torches which burned with evil-looking red flames and black smoke. Ogres with monstrous yellow teeth, black dogs, hyenas, wolves, and wolverines; spirits of evil trees and poisonous plants; and other creatures. Udugs, hags and succubi, wraiths, banshees, efreets, hob-goblins, and ghouls. Here were all those who were on the warlock's side and whom the wolf had summoned at his command. And right in the middle, standing by the table, was the warlock himself. He wore a long-sleeved robe and his face was half covered with a hood but the boys knew it was him by his startingly white skin.

A howl and a groan of dismay went up from the creatures when they first saw the great lioness pacing towards them, and for a moment even the warlock seemed to be struck with fear. Then he recovered himself and gave a wild fierce laugh.

"The fool!" he cried. "The idiot has come. Bind her fast."

Luke and Simon held their breaths waiting for Aslaine's roar and her spring upon her enemies. But it never came. Two trolls and two ogres, grinning and leering, yet half afraid of what they had to do, cautiously approached her.

"Bind her, I say!" repeated the White Warlock.

The trolls and the ogres made a dart at her and shrieked with triumph when they found that she made no resistance at all.

Then others – hob-goblins and ghouls - rushed in to help them, and between them they rolled the huge lioness over on her back and tied all her four paws together, shouting and cheering as if they had done something brave, though, had the lioness chosen, one of those paws could have been the death of them all.

Luke began to spring out of the bushes but Simon held him back. "Luke! What are you doing?" he whispered.

Luke struggled. "Let go of me. We've got to help Aslaine."

'Stop!" said Simon. "We promised Aslaine that we would stay here. There's too many of them for us to do anything."

Luke wriggled and strained but his older brother was bigger and stronger than him. Finally, he subsided, his face wet with angry tears.

Aslaine made no noise, even when the enemies, straining and tugging, pulled the cords so tight that they cut into her flesh. Then they began to drag her towards the Stone Table.

"Why, she's only a great cat after all!" cried a succubus.

"Is that what we were afraid of?" said an efreet.

And they surged round Aslaine, jeering at her, saying things like "Puss, Puss!" and "How many mice have you caught today, Pussy? You'll never catch another one!" and "Would you like a saucer of milk, Pussums?"

"Oh, how can they?" asked Luke, tears still streaming down his cheeks. "The cads, the rotters!"

"Muzzle her!" said the warlock. And even now, as they worked about her face putting on the muzzle, one bite from her jaws would have cost two or three of them their hands. But she never moved. And this seemed to enrage all that rabble. Everyone was at her now. Those who had been afraid to come near her even after she was bound, began to find their courage, and for a few minutes the two boys could not even see her - so thickly was she surrounded by the whole crowd of creatures and monsters kicking her, clouting her, spitting on her, jeering at her.

Tiring of this at last, the rabble began to tug the bound and muzzled lioness to the Stone Table, some pulling and some pushing. She was so huge that even when they got her there it took all their efforts to hoist her on to the surface of it. There was more tying and tightening of cords.

"The cowards! The beastly cowards!" sobbed Simon. "Are they still afraid of her, even now?"

When once Aslaine had been tied (and tied so that she was really a mass of cords) on the large flat stone, the crowd stilled and became silent. Four trolls, holding four torches, stood at the corners of the table. The warlock pulled back his hood to reveal all of his white face and pulled up his long sleeves to show his gleaming pale arms as he had bared them the previous night when it had been Edwina instead of Aslaine. Then he began to whet his knife. It looked to the boys (when the flickering light of the torches fell on it), as if the knife were made of stone, not of steel and the graven handle was of an evil design.

As last the warlock drew near. He stood by Aslaine's head. His face was working and twitching with passion, but hers looked up at the sky, neither angry nor afraid, but a little sad. He stooped down and said in a trembling voice, "And now, who has won? Idiot, did you think that by all this you could save the human traitor? Now I will kill you instead of her as our pact was and so the Profound Magic will be appeased. But when you are dead what will stop me from killing her as well? Know that you have given me Nernya forever, you have lost your own life and you have not saved her. With that knowledge, despair and die." He raised the knife high.

The boys did not see the actual moment of the killing. They couldn't bear to look and covered their eyes.


	15. Chapter 15 Hidden Magic

Chapter Fifteen – Hidden Magic

While the two boys still crouched in the bushes with their hands over their faces, they heard the voice of the warlock shouting, "Now! All follow me and we will set about finishing this war! It will not take us long to crush the human vermin and the traitors now that gigantic fool, the great cat is dead."

In that moment, the boys were for a few seconds in very great danger. With wild cries and a noise of skirling pipes and shrill horns blowing, the whole of that vile rabble swept off the hill-top and down the slope right past their hiding-place. They felt the wraiths go by them like a cold wind and they felt the ground shake beneath them under the galloping feet of the minotaurs and the loping of the wolves. Overhead there went a flurry of foul wings and black shadows of vultures and giant bats. At any other time they would have trembled with fear; but their minds were too full of the sadness and shame and horror of Aslaine's death.

As soon as the wood was silent again, Simon and Luke crept out onto the open hill-top. The moon was getting low and thin clouds were passing across it, but still they could see the shape of the lioness lying dead in her bonds. They both knelt in the wet grass and kissed her cold face and stroked her beautiful fur - what was left of it - and cried. And then they looked at each other and hugged each other for comfort and cried again till they could cry no more; and then were silent.

At last Luke said, "I can't bear to look at that horrible muzzle. I wonder could we take if off?"

So they tried. And after a lot of working at it (for their fingers were cold and it was now the darkest part of the night) they succeeded. And when they saw her face without it they burst out crying again and kissed it and fondled it and wiped away the blood and the foam as well as they could. They had never felt so lonely and hopeless.

"I wonder could we untie her as well?" said Simon presently.

But the enemies, out of pure spitefulness, had drawn the cords so tight that the boys could make nothing of the knots.

Hours and hours seemed to go by, and they hardly noticed that they were getting colder and colder. But at last Luke noticed two other things. One was that the sky on the east side of the hill was a little less dark than it had been an hour ago. The other was some tiny movement going on in the grass at his feet. At first he took no interest in this. What did it matter? Nothing mattered now! But at last he saw that whatever-it-was had begun to creep up the upright stones of the Stone Table. And now whatever-they-were were moving about on Aslaine's body. He peered closer. They were little grey animals.

"Ugh!" said Simon from the other side of the Table. "How horrid! There are horrid little mice crawling over her. Go away, you little beasts." And he raised his hand to frighten them away.

"Wait!" said Luke, who had been looking at them more closely still. "Can you see what they're doing?"

Both boys bent down and stared.

"I do believe —" said Simon. "But how queer! They're nibbling away at the cords!"

"That's what I thought," said Luke. "I think they're friendly mice. Poor little things, they don't realize she's dead. They think it'll do some good untying her."

It was quite definitely lighter by now. Each of the boys noticed for the first time the white face of the other. They could see the mice nibbling away; dozens and dozens, even hundreds, of little field mice. And at last, one by one, the ropes were all gnawed through.

The sky in the east was whitish by now and the stars were getting fainter - all except one very big one low down on the eastern horizon. They felt colder than they had been all night. The mice scuttled away again.

The girls cleared away the remains of the gnawed ropes. They could see the bright red weals on her body where the cords had cut into the skin and wept to see them.

Aslaine looked more like herself without them. Every moment her dead face looked nobler, as the light grew and they could see it better.

In the wood behind them a bird chirped. It had been so still for so long that it startled them. Then another bird answered it. Soon there were birds singing all over the place.

It was quite definitely early morning now, not late night.

"I'm so cold," said Luke and shivered.

"So am I," said Simon, rubbing his arms. "Let's stroll about a bit."

They walked to the eastern edge of the hill and looked down. The one big star had almost disappeared. The country all looked dark grey, but beyond, at the very end of the world, the sea showed pale. The sky began to turn red. They walked to and fro more times than they could count between the dead Aslaine and the eastern ridge, trying to keep warm; and oh, how tired their legs felt. As they stood for a moment looking out towards the sea and Cair Paranel, the red turned to gold along the line where the sea and the sky met and very slowly up came the edge of the sun. At that moment they heard from behind them a loud noise - a great cracking, deafening noise as if a giantess had broken a giantess's plate.

"What's that?" said Luke, clutching Simon's arm.

"I - I feel afraid to turn round," said Simon; "something awful is happening."

"They're doing something worse to her," said Luke. "Come on!" And he turned, pulling Simon round with him.

The rising of the sun had made everything look very different - all colours and shadows were so changed that for a moment they didn't see the important thing. Then they did. The Stone Table was broken into two pieces by a great crack that ran down it from end to end; and there was no Aslaine.

"Oh, oh, oh!" cried the two boys, rushing back to the table.

"Oh, it's too bad," sobbed Luke; "they might have left the body alone."

"Who's done it?" cried Simon. "What does it mean? Is it magic?"

"Yes!" said a great voice behind their backs. "It is more magic." They looked round. There, shining in the sunrise, larger than they had seen her before, stood Aslaine herself.

"Oh, Aslaine!" cried both the boys, staring up at her, almost as frightened as they were glad.

"Aren't you dead then, dear Aslaine?" said Luke.

"Not now," said Aslaine.

"You're not - not a - ?" asked Simon in a shaky voice. He couldn't bring himself to say the word ghost. Aslaine stooped her golden head and licked his forehead. The warmth of her breath and a rich sort of smell that came from her fur surrounded him.

"Do I look it?" she said.

"Oh, you're real, you're real! Oh, Aslaine!" cried Luke, and both boys flung themselves upon him and covered her with kisses.

"But what does it all mean?" asked Simon when they were somewhat calmer.

"It means," said Aslaine, "that though the warlock knew the Profound Magic, there is a Hidden Magic which he did not know: His knowledge goes back only to the dawn of time. But if he could have looked a little further back, into the stillness and the darkness before time dawned, he would have read there a different conjuration. He would have known that when a willing victim who had committed no treachery was killed in a traitor's stead, the Stone Table would crack and Death itself would start working backwards. And now-"

"Now?" Luke asked, jumping up and clapping his hands.

"Oh, children," said the lioness, "I feel my strength coming back to me. Oh, boys, catch me if you can!"

She stood for a second, her eyes very bright, her limbs quivering, lashing herself with her tail. Then she made a leap high over their heads and landed on the other side of the broken table. Laughing, though he didn't know why, Luke scrambled over it to reach her. Aslaine leaped again. A mad chase began. Round and round the hill-top she led them, now hopelessly out of their reach, now letting them almost catch her tail, now diving between them, now tossing them in the air with her huge and beautifully velveted paws and catching them again, and now stopping unexpectedly so that all three of them rolled over together in a happy laughing heap of fur and arms and legs. Luke could never make up his mind whether it was more like playing with a thunderstorm or playing with a kitten. And the funny thing was that when all three finally lay together panting in the sun the boys no longer felt in the least tired or hungry or thirsty.

"And now," said Aslaine presently, "to business. I am going to roar. You had better put your fingers in your ears."

And they did. Aslaine stood up and when she opened her mouth to roar, her face became so terrible that they did not dare to look at it. They saw all the trees in front of her bend before the blast of her roaring as grass bends in a meadow before the wind. Then she said, "We have a long journey to go. You must ride on me."

And she crouched down and the boys climbed on to her warm, golden back, and Simon sat first, holding on tightly to her neck and Luke sat behind holding on tightly to Simon. And with a great heave she rose underneath them and then shot off, faster than any horse could go, down-hill and into the thick of the forest.

That ride was perhaps the most wonderful thing that had happened to them in Nernya. The almost noiseless padding of the great paws, the soft roughness of golden fur, and going about twice as fast as the fastest racehorse. The boys clung on and gaped. Aslaine rushed on and on, never missing her footing, never hesitating, threading her way with perfect skill between tree trunks. She jumped over bush and briar and the smaller streams. She waded the larger, and swam the largest of all. The boys' feet got a little wet but soon dried out.

They rode right across Nernya, in the springtime, down solemn avenues of ash and across sunny glades of oak. Through wild orchards of snow-white cherry trees and almond trees that showered them with pink petals as they passed underneath, past roaring waterfalls and green mossy rocks and echoing caverns. Up windy slopes alight with gorse bushes, and across the shoulders of heathery mountains and along slippery ridges and down, down, down again into wild valleys and out into acres of blue flowers.

It was nearly midday when they found themselves looking down a steep hillside at a castle - a little toy castle it looked from where they stood - which seemed to be all pointed towers. But the lioness was rushing down at such a speed that it grew larger every moment and before they had time even to ask themselves what it was they were already on a level with it. Now it no longer looked like a toy castle but rose frowning in front of them. No face looked over the battlements and the massive wooden gates were fast shut. And Aslaine, not at all slacking her pace, rushed straight as a bullet towards it.

"The warlock's home!" she cried. "Now, children, hold tight."

The next moment the whole world seemed to turn upside down, and the children felt as if they had left their insides behind them. The lioness had gathered herself together for a greater leap than any she had yet made and jumped - or you may call it flying rather than jumping - right over the castle wall. The two boys, breathless but unhurt, found themselves tumbling off her back in the middle of a wide stone courtyard full of statues.


	16. Chapter 16 The Statues Awoken

Chapter Sixteen - The Statues Awoken

"What an extraordinary place!" cried Luke. "All those statues of animals - and people too! It's … it's like a museum."

"Hush," said Simon, "Aslaine's doing something."

She was indeed. She had bounded up to the stone lioness and breathed on her. Then without waiting a moment she whisked round - almost as if she had been a cat chasing its tail -and breathed also on the stone dwarf, which (as you remember) was standing a few feet from the lioness with her back to it. Then she pounced on a tall stone dryad which stood beyond the dwarf, turned rapidly aside to deal with a stone rabbit on her right, and rushed on to two centaurs. But at that moment Luke said, "Oh, Simon! Look! Look at the lioness."

For a second after Aslaine had breathed upon her, the stone lioness looked just the same. Then a tiny streak of gold began to run along her white marble back then it spread and the colour seemed to lick all over her as a flame licks all over a bit of paper. This was followed by black stripes painting themselves down her body.

'Oh, I say,' whispered Simon to Luke, 'she's a tigress, not a lioness!"

For a second, a pair of spectacles appeared on her face then fell off and the lenses popped out and smashed. Then she opened a great red mouth, warm and living, and gave a prodigious yawn. come to life. She lifted a hind leg and scratched herself. Then, having caught sight of Aslaine, she went bounding after her and frisking round her, whimpering with delight and jumping up to lick her face.

The children's eyes turned to follow the tigress; but the sight they saw was so wonderful that they soon forgot about her. Everywhere the statues were coming to life. The courtyard looked no longer like a museum; it looked more like a zoo. Creatures were running after Aslaine and dancing round her till she was almost hidden in the crowd. Instead of all that deadly white, the courtyard was now a blaze of colours; glossy chestnut sides of centaurs, sparkling diamond horns of unicorns, dazzling plumage of birds, reddy-brown of foxes, dogs and satyrs, beige and fawn of llamas, yellow stockings and crimson hoods of dwarfs; and the birch-boys in silver, and the beech-boys in fresh, transparent green, and the larch-boys in green so bright that it was almost yellow. And instead of the deadly silence the whole place rang with the sound of happy roarings, brayings, yelpings, barkings, squealings, cooings, neighings, stampings, shouts, hurrahs, songs and laughter.

"Oh!" said Simon in a different tone. "Look! I wonder - I mean, is it safe?"

Luke looked and saw that Aslaine had just breathed on the feet of the stone giantess.

"It's all right!" shouted Aslaine joyously. "Once the feet are put right, all the rest of her will follow."

"That wasn't exactly what I meant," whispered Simon to Luke.

But it was too late to do anything about it now even if Aslaine would have listened to him. The change was already creeping up the giantess's legs. Now she was moving her feet. A moment later she lifted her club off her shoulder, rubbed her eyes and said, "Bless me! I must have been asleep. Now! Where's that dratted little warlock that was running about on the ground. Somewhere just by my feet it was."

But when everyone had shouted up to her to explain what had really happened, and when the giantess had put her hand to her ear and got them to repeat it all again so that at last she understood, then she bowed down till her head was no further off than the top of a haystack and touched her bonnet repeatedly to Aslaine, beaming all over her honest ugly face.

"Now for the inside of this house!" said Aslaine. "Look alive, everyone. Upstairs and down stairs and in my lord's chamber! Leave no corner unsearched. You never know where some poor prisoner may be concealed."

And into the interior they all rushed and for several minutes the whole of that dark, horrible, fusty old castle echoed with the opening of windows and with everyone's voices crying out at once.

"Don't forget the dungeons - Give us a hand with this door! Here's another little winding stair - Oh! I say. Here's a poor wallaby. Call Aslaine - Phew! How it smells in here - Look out for trap-doors - Up here! There are a whole lot more on the landing!"

But the best of all was when Luke came rushing out, shouting, "Aslaine! Aslaine! I've found Miss Bonadea in the hall. Oh, do come quick."

A moment later, Luke and the little faun were holding each other by both hands and dancing round and round for joy. The little lass was none the worse for having been a statue and was of course very interested in all he had to tell her.

But at last the ransacking of the warlock's fortress was ended. The whole castle stood empty with every door and window open and the light and the sweet spring air flooding into all the dark and evil places which needed them so badly. The whole crowd of liberated statues surged back into the courtyard. And it was then that someone (Bonadea, I think) first said, "But how are we going to get out?"

For Aslaine had got in by a jump and the gates were still locked.

"That'll be all right," said Aslaine; and then, rising on her hind-legs, she bawled up at the giantess.

"Hi! You up there," he roared. "What's your name?"

"Giantess Rumblebelcha, if it please your honour," said the giantess, once more touching her cap.

"Well then, Giantess Rumblebelcha," said Aslaine, "just let us out of this, will you?"

"Certainly, your honour. It will be a pleasure," said Giant Rumblebelcha. "Stand well away from the gates, all you little 'uns." Then she strode to the gate herself and bang - bang - bang - went her huge club. The gates creaked at the first blow, cracked at the second, and shivered at the third. Then she tackled the towers on each side of them and after a few minutes of crashing and thudding both the towers and a good bit of the wall on each side went thundering down in a mass of hopeless rubble. When the dust cleared it was odd, standing in that dry, grim, stony yard, to see through the gap all the grass and waving trees and sparkling streams of the forest, and the green hills beyond that and beyond them the blue sky.

"Bless me if I ain't all in a muck sweat," said the giantess, puffing like the largest ever railway engine. "Comes of being out of condition. I suppose neither of you young lords has such a thing as a pocket-handkerchee about you?"

"Yes, I have," said Luke, standing on tip-toes and holding his handkerchief up as far as he could reach.

"Thank you, Master," said Giantess Rumblebelcha, stooping down. Next moment Luke got rather a fright for he found himself caught up in mid-air between the giantess's finger and thumb. But just as he was getting near her face, she suddenly started and then put him gently back on the ground muttering, "Well I never. I've picked up the little boy instead. I beg your pardon, Master, I thought you was the handkerchee!"

"No, no," said Luke laughing, "here it is!"

This time she managed to get it but it was only about the same size to her that a postage stamp would be to a human, so that when he saw her solemnly rubbing it across her great red face, she said, "I'm afraid it's not much use to you, Mrs. Rumblebelcha."

"Not at all. Not at all," said the giantess politely. "Never met a nicer handkerchee. So fine, so handy. So - I don't know how to describe it."

"What a nice giantess she is!" said Luke to Miss Bonadea.

"Oh yes," replied the faun. "All the Belchas always were. One of the most respected of all the giant families in Narnia. Not very clever, perhaps (I never knew a giant that was), but an old family. With traditions, you know. If she'd been the other sort he'd never have turned her into stone."

At this point Aslaine clapped her paws together and called for silence.

"Our day's work is not yet over," she said, "and if the warlock is to be finally defeated before bed-time we must find the battle at once."

"And join in, I hope, marm!" added the largest of the centaurs.

"Of course," said Aslaine. "And now! Those who can't keep up - that is, children, dwarfs, and small animals - must ride on the backs of those who can - that is, lions, centaurs, unicorns, horses, giants and eagles. Those who are good with their noses must come in front with us Great Cats to smell out where the battle is. Look lively and sort yourselves."

And with a great deal of bustle and cheering they did. The most pleased of the lot was the tigress who kept running about everywhere pretending to be very busy but really in order to say to everyone he met. "Did you hear what he said? Us Great Cats. That means him and me. Us Great Cats. That's what I like about Aslaine. No side, no stand-off-ishness. Us Great Cats. That meant her and me." At least she went on saying this till Aslaine had loaded her up with three dwarfs, one weasel, two rabbits, and a hedgehog. That steadied her a bit.

When all were ready (it was a big sheep-dog who actually helped Aslaine most in getting them sorted into their proper order) they set out through the gap in the castle wall. At first the great cats and dogs went nosing about in all directions. But then suddenly one great hound picked up the scent and gave a bay. There was no time lost after that. Soon all the dogs and great cats and other hunting animals were going at full speed with their noses to the ground, and all the others, streaked out for about half a mile behind them, were following as fast as they could. The noise was like an English fox-hunt only louder because every now and then with the music of the hounds was joined by the roar of the tigress and sometimes the far deeper and more awful roar of Aslaine herself. Faster and faster they went as the scent became easier and easier to follow. And then, just as they came to the last curve in a narrow, winding valley, Luke heard above all these noises a greater noise - a different one, which gave him a queer feeling inside. It was a noise of shouts and shrieks and of the clashing of metal against metal.

Then they came out of the narrow valley and at once he saw the reason. There stood Peronel and Edwina and all the rest of Aslaine's army fighting desperately against the crowd of horrible creatures whom he had seen last night. In the daylight, they looked even stranger and more evil and more deformed. There also seemed to be far more of them. Peronel's army - which had their backs to her looked terribly few. And there were statues dotted all over the battlefield, so apparently the warlock had been using his wand. But he did not seem to be using it now. He was fighting with his stone knife now turned into a long and terrible metal sword. It was Peronel he was fighting - both of them going at it so hard that Luke could hardly make out what was happening; he only saw the warlock's sword and Peronel's sword flashing so quickly that they looked like three knives and three swords. That pair were in the centre. On each side the line stretched out. Horrible things were happening wherever he looked.

"Quickly! Off my back, boys," shouted Aslaine. And they both tumbled off.

Then with a roar that shook all Nernya from the western lamp-post to the shores of the eastern sea, the great beast flung herself upon the White Warlock and knocked Peronel out of the way. Luke saw the warlock's face lifted towards him for one second with an expression of terror and amazement. Then lioness and warlock had rolled over together but with the warlock underneath. Peronel, sprawled on the ground, watched the fight with amazement and joy. At the same moment all war-like creatures whom Aslaine had led from the warlock's castle rushed madly on the enemy lines, dwarfs with their battleaxes, dogs with teeth, the tigress with her teeth and claws, the giantess with her club (and her feet also crushed dozens of the foe), unicorns with their horns, centaurs with swords and hoofs. Peronel's tired army cheered, as did the animals and creatures that Aslaine had rescued, and the newcomers roared, and the enemy squealed and howled till the wood re-echoed with the din of that onset.


	17. Chapter 17 - The White Doe

Chapter Seventeen - The Hunting Of The White Doe

The battle was all over a few minutes after their arrival. Most of the enemy had been killed in the first charge of Aslaine and her companions; and when those who were still living saw that the warlock was dead, they either gave themselves up or took to flight. The next thing that Luke saw was that Peronel dipped her head to Aslaine. It was strange to him to see Peronel looking as she looked now - her face was so pale and stern and she seemed so much older.

"It was all Edwina's doing, Aslaine," Peronel was saying. "We'd have been beaten if it hadn't been for her. The warlock was turning our troops into stone right and left. But nothing would stop her. She fought her way through an ogre, a troll and a wolf to where he was just turning one of your centaurs into a statue. And when Edwina reached him, she had sense to bring her sword smashing down on his wand instead of trying to attack him directly and simply getting made a statue herself for her pains. That was the mistake all the rest were making. Once his wand was broken we began to have some chance - if we hadn't lost so many already. She was terribly wounded. We must go and see her."

They found Edwina in the charge of Mr. Beaver a little way back from the fighting line. She was covered with blood, her mouth was open, and her face a nasty green colour.

"Quick, Luke," said Aslaine.

And then, almost for the first time, Luke remembered the precious cordial that had been given him for a Christmas present. His hands trembled so much that he fumbled undoing the stopper, but he managed it in the end and poured a few drops into his sister's mouth.

"There are other people wounded," said Aslaine while he was still looking eagerly into Edwina's pale face and wondering if the cordial would have any result.

"Yes, I know," said Luke crossly. "Wait a minute."

"Son of Adam," said Aslaine in a graver voice, "others also are at the point of death. Must more people die for Edwina?"

Simon hoped that Edwina had not heard this.

"I'm sorry, Aslaine," said Luke, getting up and going with her. And for the next half-hour they were busy - he attending to the wounded while she restored those who had been turned into stone. When at last he was free to come back to Edwina, he found her standing on her feet and not only healed of her wounds but looking better than he had seen her look - oh, for ages. She had become her real old self again and could look you in the face. And there on the field of battle Aslaine made her a knight.

"Does she know," whispered Luke to Simon, "what Aslaine did for her? Does she know what the arrangement with the warlock really was?"

"Hush! No. Of course not," said Simon.

"Oughtn't she to be told?" said Luke.

"Oh, surely not," said Simon. "It would be too dreadful for her. Think how you'd feel if you were she. And she's been so brave."

"All the same I think she ought to know," said Luke. But at that moment they were interrupted.

Edwina had made a point of telling Aslaine about the fox that the warlock had turned into stone. Aslaine vanished and then returned with the elderly fox, looking bewildered and still clutching a glass of wine in her paw. When the fox saw Edwina, she bowed and said, "A health unto Your Majesty!"

Somehow, the boys never did get around to discussing the matter further and Edwina was never told what Aslaine had done for her.

That night they slept where they were. Somehow or other they found themselves all sitting down on the grass to a fine high tea at about eight o'clock that had magically appeared. Next day, after a hearty breakfast, with eggs and bacon, and toast and jam for the children, they began marching eastward down the side of the great river. And the next day after that, at about teatime, they actually reached the mouth.

The castle of Cair Paravel on its little hill towered up above them; before them were the sands, with rocks and little pools of salt water, and seaweed, and seagulls screeching overhead, and the smell of the sea and long miles of bluish-green waves breaking for ever and ever on the beach.

That evening after tea, the four children all managed to get down to the beach again and get their shoes and stockings off and feel the sand between their toes. But next day was more solemn.

For then, in the Great Hall of Cair Paranel - that wonderful hall with the ivory roof, and the north wall made of a great mirror that could show you what was happening in all of Nernya, and the west wall hung with peacock's feathers and the eastern door which looks towards the sea, in the presence of all their friends and to the sound of trumpets, Aslaine solemnly crowned them and led them to the four thrones amid deafening shouts of, "Long Live Queen Peronel! Long Live King Simon! Long Live Queen Edwina! Long Live King Luke!"

"Once a queen or king in Nernya, always a queen or king. Bear it well, Daughters of Eve! Bear it well, Sons of Adam!" Aslaine said.

And through the eastern door, which was wide open, came the voices of the mermaids and the mermen swimming close to the shore and singing in honour of their new queens and kings.

So, the children sat on their thrones and sceptres were put into their hands. They gave rewards and honours to all their friends, to Miss Bonadea the faun, and to the beavers, and Giantess Rumblebelcha, to the panthers, and the centaurs, and the good dwarfs, and to the tigress and the elderly fox. And that night there was a great feast in Cair Paranel, and gold flashed and wine flowed, and answering to the music inside, but stranger, sweeter, and more piercing, came the music of the sea people. On the lawn in front of Cair Paranel, the dryads danced with the dwarfs and the fauns in honour of the queens and kings.

But amidst all these rejoicings Aslaine herself quietly slipped away. And when the queens and kings noticed that she wasn't there they said nothing about it. For Mrs. Beaver had warned them, "She'll be coming and going," she had said. "One day you'll see her and another you won't. She doesn't like being tied down and of course she has other countries to attend to. It's quite all right. She'll often drop in. Only you mustn't press her. She's wild, you know. Not like a tame lioness."

These two queens and two kings governed Nernya well, and long and happy was their reign. At first much of their time was spent in seeking out the remnants of the White Warlock's army and destroying them. Indeed for a long time there would be news of evil things lurking in the wilder parts of the forest and the moors - a haunting here and a killing there, a glimpse of a vampire one month and a rumour of a troll the next. But in the end, all that foul brood was stamped out.

They made good laws and made sure they were enforced and kept the peace. And they drove back the fierce giants (quite a different sort from Giant Rumblebelcha) on the north of Nernya when these ventured across the frontier. And they entered into friendship and alliance with countries beyond the sea and paid them visits of state and received visits of state from them.

Simon and Luke never did tell Edwina what Aslaine had done for her. Simon persuaded Luke that it was for the best, that Edwina would feel so horribly guilty that she might never overcome her guilt.

And they themselves grew and changed as the years passed over them. And Peronel became a tall and deep-chested woman and a great warrior, and she was called Queen Peronel the Magnificent. And Simon grew into a tall and gracious man with black hair that fell almost to his feet and the queens of the countries beyond the sea began to send ambassadors asking for his hand in marriage. And he was called King Simon the Gentle. Edwina was a graver and quieter woman than Peronel, and great in council and judgement. She was called Queen Edwina the Just. But as for Luke, he was always gay and golden-haired, and all princesses in those parts desired him to be their king, and his own people called him King Luke the Valiant.

So they lived in great joy and contentment and if ever they remembered their life in this world it was only as one remembers a dream.

Late one summer, Miss Bonadea (who was a middle-aged faun by now and beginning to be plump) came down river and brought them news that the White Doe had once more appeared in these parts, the White Doe who would give you wishes if you caught her. So the two queens and two kings with the principal members of their court, rode a-hunting with horns and hounds in the Western Woods to follow the White Doe. And they had not hunted long before they had a sight of her. And she led them a great pace over rough and smooth and through thick and thin, till the horses of all the courtiers were tired out and only the royal four were still following. They saw the doe enter into a thicket where their horses could not follow.

Then Queen Peronel said, "Let us get down from our horses and follow this wondrous beast into the thicket; we do not want to lose this quarry."

The others said, "Let us do that."

So they got down and tied their horses to trees and went on into the thick wood on foot. And as soon as they had entered it King Simon said, "Here is a great marvel. I see a tree of iron."

"Simon," said Queen Edwina, "if you look closely, you can see it is a pillar of iron with a lantern set on the top."

"By the Lioness, this is a strange thing to do," said King Luke, "to place a lantern here where the trees cluster so thick about it and so high above it that if it were lit, it should not give light to any one!"

"Luke," said Queen Peronel. "It seems likely that when this post and this lamp were placed here, there were smaller trees in the place, or fewer, or none. For this is a young wood and this is an old iron post."

And they stood looking upon it.

Then said Queen Edwina, "I know not how, but it seems to me that I have seen the lamp and the post before; in a dream, or in the dream of a dream."

They all answered Queen Edwina with, "We feel that too."

"And moreover," said King Luke, "I have a presentiment that if we pass this post and lantern either we shall find strange adventures or else some great change of our fortunes."

"Luke," said Queen Edwina, "I have a strange foreboding in my heart."

"And in mine, Edwina," said Queen Peronel.

"And in mine too," said King Simon. "Therefore, I suggest we return to our horses and follow this White Doe no further."

"Simon," said Queen Peronel, "I disagree. Ever since we four became queens and kings in Nernya, we have never refused any battle, quest, feats of arms, act of justice, and the like, but have always won through."

King Luke said, "Peronel speaks the truth. And it seems to me we should be ashamed to turn back from following so noble a beast because of fears or forebodings."

"And so say I," said Queen Edwina. "And I so want to find the significance of this object that I would not turn back for the richest jewel in all Narnia and all the islands."

"Then in the name of Aslaine," said Queen Peronel, "if you all agree, let us go on and see what adventure befalls us."

"I cannot agree," said King Simon, "I think this present venture rash and ill-advised. I would much rather forget this quest and return to Cair Paranel but for love of you, my sisters and brother, I will go wherever it takes us."

Queen Peronel clapped him on the back and told him to be of good cheer.

So the queens and kings entered the thicket and before they had gone a score of paces, they all remembered that the thing they had seen was called a lamppost. Before they had gone twenty more, they noticed that they were making their way not through branches but through coats. And the next moment they all came tumbling out of a wardrobe door into the empty room. They were no longer queens and kings in their colourful and richly embroidered garments but just Peronel, Simon, Edwina and Luke in their old clothes. Their weapons were gone. It was the same day and the same hour of the day on which they had all gone into the wardrobe to hide. They were the exactly the same age as when they went into the wardrobe. Mrs. O'Grady and the visitors were still talking in the passage; but luckily they never came into the empty room and so the children weren't caught.

And that would have been the very end of the story if it hadn't been that they felt they really must explain to the professor why four of the fur coats out of her wardrobe were missing. And the professor, who was a very remarkable woman, didn't tell them not to be silly or to stop telling lies, but believed the whole story.

"No," she said, "I don't think it will be any good trying to go back through the wardrobe. You won't get into Nernya again by that route."

"Do you think we'll ever go back?' Peronel asked wistfully.

"Eh? What's that? Yes, of course you'll get back to Nernya again. Once a queen or king in Nernya, always a queen or king in Nernya. But don't go trying to use the same route twice. Indeed, don't try to get there at all. It'll happen when you're not looking for it. And don't talk too much about it even among yourselves. And don't mention it to anyone else unless you find that they've had adventures of the same sort themselves.

"How will we know?" asked Simon.

"Oh, you'll know all right. Odd things they say – their attitudes - even their looks - will let the secret out. Keep your eyes open. Bless me, what do they teach them at these schools?

And that is the very end of the adventure of the wardrobe.

But the professor was right, it was only the beginning of the adventures of Nernya.


End file.
